Flange reduction surgery. LL SW7

[peteski]

Almost, apparently a manufacturing tolerance thing, differing by a thousandth or two. I did this on one of my SWs a couple of years ago and, IIRC, the fit was a touch loose. A spot of CA, or Loctite green or purple wouldn't be a bad idea since they were loose enough to push out of gauge in normal handling, such as re-railing.

You know, now I  recall doing a test fitting of Kato wheels in LL axle tube and the fit was a bit loose. Yeah, must be a tolerance thing because both company's axles supposed to be the same diameter.

As far as keeping the wheels in gauge, that is why I insert a washer (or sometimes washers) between the axle tube and wheel back (this is described in the post in the thread I linked ot earlier).  In this type of wheelset design. most axle tubes are manufactured a bit short, so if the wheel backs rest against the tube ends, the gauge is too tight.  With a washer installed, that can't happen (because the washer basically increases the length of the axle tube.  And on the opposite side (the axle ends, the bearing cups will keep the wheelset in gauge.

But Super Glue or Loctite is still needed to lock the axles to the plastic tube for transferring torque.

[C855B]

Yep, thanks for the reminder about the washers. I even bought a leather punch to make the washers with, worked pretty well. I've sort of ignored the thing since doing the conversion, as it is currently in the black hole on my bench otherwise known as "needs DCC", plus this particular SW is an undec waiting for the roundtuit to hack into a TR5 calf.

[mmagliaro]

Congratulations on turning them down.  This is just a good reminder that for wheels like this, where there is a half axle (or a nub), this is not too hard a job because you have something convenient to clamp in a chuck to turn the wheels.  The only time it gets difficult is for a plain wheel with no axle or other protrusion out the back.

And as you've shown, a hand-held drill and some files does a perfectly good job of getting the flanges turned down and uniform enough.  Nobody is going to notice if a flange is a few thousandths out of round, or even .005" out of round.  You'd have to get above .005", I bet, before it would even show to an observer, or make any difference on the track.

[Jim Starbuck]

The first time I tried turning these down I used a Dremel and it spins way too fast. I had the flange out of round before I knew what was going on.
A cordless drill turning slowly works much better

[diezmon]

So, my Kato wheel sets arrived and I tried my hand at the @peteski method.

Yep, much easier than turning down the flanges.

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I did attempt to modify the Kato axle to line up with the existing gears, by taking a little of of one end and sliding it on the other.  It works, but not really worth the trouble
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Converted two units tonight and only took about 45 minutes
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[peteski]

Nice! and the Kato wheels look so much better (well, the small portions you can see behind the sideframes). 
What kind of adhesive did you use to glue the Kato metal half-axles loosely fitting into the LL axle tubes?

[diezmon]

Nice! and the Kato wheels look so much better (well, the small portions you can see behind the sideframes). 
What kind of adhesive did you use to glue the Kato metal half-axles loosely fitting into the LL axle tubes?

I just used a wee bit of medium viscosity CA.    I guess we'll see if that holds up.