Large Scale Central

Ball bearing wheels

Modeling Rolling stock
#41

Dan Pantages said:

Not being stainless steel, I didn’t think about that. Are the ones used by Accucraft in their streamlined passenger car stainless? These are sealed bearings. Joe, you’re in Florida, does anything rust?(https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif) All I know is they work. I have done 3 coaches. With them coupled I gave them a push on my railroad and when they stopped they rolled back 8 or 10 feet. I thought my railroad was level, my 6ft level says it is but I guess not.

Oh I don’t doubt for a moment that they work. That is why after I thought about it for a while, I purchased 50 to use on my passenger cars which do not get left outside.

As far as Florida and rust, our humidity is usually the same number as our temperature. I have the most rust problems with my Kadee couplers. The pivot pins rust like crazy and the knuckles won’t work. They either won’t open or they won’t close. When that happens I disassemble the coupler and knock out the rusted pin and replace it with a galvanized common nail and clip off the excess. I long ago cut off the bottom part of the stock pin because my couplers are all truck mounted and they hang too low to clear the frogs on my switches.

#42

Dan Pantages said:

Not being stainless steel, I didn’t think about that. Are the ones used by Accucraft in their streamlined passenger car stainless? These are sealed bearings. Joe, you’re in Florida, does anything rust?(https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif) All I know is they work. I have done 3 coaches. With them coupled I gave them a push on my railroad and when they stopped they rolled back 8 or 10 feet. I thought my railroad was level, my 6ft level says it is but I guess not.

Dan, I discovered the same thing about my trestle when I put ball bearings in mu USA wood side reefers. I would set a reefer on my trestle, and the car would just wander off.

Joe, yes, I had the same issue, so I bent the trip pins up so they are 1/8 inch above the rail-head.

#43

Will those bearings work for the USAT trucks and axles? $11 for 50,bearings sounds reasonable…

#44

I don’t know about the 1:29 scale USA stuff, but they can be used on the 1:24 USA stuff, if one drills out the journals.

https://largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/24202/ball-bearing-journal-inserts

#45

Here’s a link from the Bachmann forum on ball bearing inserts.

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,27994.0.html

#46

A small, but important point.

None of the bearings presented so far are sealed as far as I can tell… sealed means there is a rubber seal extending from the outer race to the inner race with a “lip” on it that keeps everything out.

The bearings I see are “shielded” which is normally a piece of metal from the outer race up to, but not touching the inner race. This does indeed block some of the dust and grit but is NOT sealed, and will not STOP rusting… it will slow it down a bit.

There’s reasons we don’t use sealed bearings, because they have too much friction. It almost negates the gains from the ball bearings. The seal’s purpose is to protect the ball bearings at the expense of some additional friction. It keeps lubricant in.

In our case, we compromise and use a shield to keep them fairly clean, but the lowest friction possible. Unfortunately moisture can get in, and oil can get out, so non-stainless bearings can eventually rust depending on the environment.

Greg

#47

Has anyone looked at converting a Bachmann Handcar to ball bearing?

Several years ago, 2009, I needed some converted to reduce the wear on the gears and axles.

Went to a R/C Car race track and found several sizes, but could not find any that would take minimum modifications to the handcar chassis.