Thursday, October 31, 2019

Romford wheel preperation

Romford wheels enjoy a well-deserved reputation as the most user-friendly locomotive wheels for kit builders. Metal centres, self-quartering axles and nice bolt-together assembly make them perfect for the sort of modeller, who like me, needs to take them on and off many times while building a chassis. 

OK, they aren't most high-fidelity of wheels, but I'll trade looks for effectiveness any day. When you build a model, they stay put on the axle without pins or glue. When you encounter wheels that don't, you pretty quickly yearn something that just does what it is supposed to. 

Despite this, I like to do a little work off the model, especially with a 2nd hand set like these. 

Even if you don't have to bathe the wheels in paint stripper, it's worth running a 10BA tap through all the crankpin holes so these later screw in nicely. 

I clean out the square central hole with a small file too. I want wheels that are snug-fit and this isn't always the case. You can turn the retaining nut harder sometimes, but it's not likely to ensure a wheel perpendicular to the axle. You don't do the special screwdriver any favour either - probably why one of mine has shorter prongs than the other making it a bit useless.  

All this only takes a few minutes but makes the next stage so much more enjoyable.

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