MT Metal Wheels

[chessie system fan]

Inspected some up close at the show and the axle point is indeed plastic. 

[Lemosteam]

Inspected some up close at the show and the axle point is indeed plastic.

Crap these would have made excellent two wheel isolated tender axles for loco powere.

Thanks for confirming!

[peteski]

From the photo, it would appear the axle points are plastic.



Jason

I agree, and that makes most sense.  But I'm still not sure what the wheels are made off: machined or cast metal.

[OliS]

Judging from the enlarged picture, you won't get this surface with machining, unless you coat it overly thick with nickle or such. The mentioned "flake off" could be irregularities/impurities from casting.

[Chris333]

Just pre weathered 

[wcfn100]

Seriously, don't these have to be machined?  I can imagine a cast wheel with a center hole where a plastic axle gets pushed through.  There's no way the wheels would be true in any axis.


Jason

[Chris333]

I think most of Bachmanns On30, HO, and N scale steam locos have cast drivers.

[peteski]

The original Kadee Micro-Trains rib-back wheels were die-cast with plastic axles.  they had details on both sides and the axle hole all cast in place. I assume that they ran true.

[Bill H]

Group:
Hasn't anyone received their MT metal wheels yet? Very curious to see if the "chemical blackening" is as coarse and chippable as the ones I received. Max?

Kind regards,
Bill

[mmagliaro]

I have received mine.  I haven't posted because I haven't run any tests on them yet.

What I can say is:

1. The blackening does not seem to scratch or chip.  I tried that just with my fingernails.
2. The metal tread surface is noticeably rough, just like it appears in the product photo.
3. Rolling a wheelset along the track just by itself, it makes a lot of noise, which I assume is from the rough treads.
4. My own cosmetic impression is that they don't look as good as FVM wheels.  I don't think the shape of the outer face is as good,
    nor the color.  The flanges also look a bit squared off instead of having smooth curved contours.

I know... this sounds pretty negative. 

I am going to test them operationally in a day or two.

My plan is to test on a car with MT trucks and FVM wheelsets.  I'll flip the car on its back, spin the wheelsets with my fingers and see how that compares to an MT wheelset and to an MT metal wheelset.  It will be subjective.  I don't really have an easy way to count the revolutions, nor do I have an easy way to apply the same exact amount of "spin" to each wheelset with my fingers.  But regardless, I think it will be obvious which ones spin the most freely.

Then, a more scientific test.  I will fit the car out with all MT plastic lo pro wheelsets, let it go at the top of a hill on my layout and see how far it rolls.  I will repeat with FVM and then with MTL metal wheelsets.  Do some repeat trials, and we'll see which ones really roll the smoothest in an actual car.

[Bill H]

Hi Max:
The only places where my set of wheels had the blackening chip was where it appeared that some sort of foreign material was in the chemical, or perhaps it was too thickly applied or something. The end result was that when I ran my finger across the wheel there were odd bumps, lumps, whatever. Those flicked off with just my fingernail. That was not on every wheel, but on many. You might want to check all of your wheels for it.

Kind regards,
Bill

[mmagliaro]

Bill,
I went back and checked by whole 12-pack after you noted this, and I do not see this problem on any of the wheelsets.
They all seem clean and uniform, and I could not find any little bumps or irregularities on the tread surface, and nothing would scratch or flick off with my fingernails.

About the only thing I can say is that all the wheels to appear to have a rather thick coating on them, and they are all rough.  Not like "sandpaper" rough, but rough enough that you can see it in the surface (like in the product photo) and hear it when they roll.

[ryan_wilkerson]

Maybe MTL should have released this mid-month with the "weathered" releases.   
Most prototype wheels look rough (except for the tread). I'm guessing they will take weathering powders nicely.

[casmmr]

Why didn't MTL just reissue their original wheels and axles?  Maybe I am dating myself, but, in 1968 and for a few years after, all Kadee MT cars had metal wheels with plastic axles.  You had to check the gauge and adjust as necessary.  I remember that these wheels had a swirl design on the inside.  later, Craig

[Bill H]

Bill,
I went back and checked by whole 12-pack after you noted this, and I do not see this problem on any of the wheelsets.
They all seem clean and uniform, and I could not find any little bumps or irregularities on the tread surface, and nothing would scratch or flick off with my fingernails.

About the only thing I can say is that all the wheels to appear to have a rather thick coating on them, and they are all rough.  Not like "sandpaper" rough, but rough enough that you can see it in the surface (like in the product photo) and hear it when they roll.

Hi Max:
Maybe I just got a bad run of the wheels. I have attached a photo of two of the types of chips I found on 6 of the 12 wheels. Sorry for the fuzzyness, it was the best my phone could do
[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

Kind regards,
Bill