Attorney Wilkins for the WIN!!!

Steve, it's a good read. And a good context-setter for those who preserve 1920s American railroading.

Howard P.

Lindsay sold out to OLDTIMEBOOKSTORE.COM.Their website shows Babbitt Bearing Techniques for $5.95
+shipping.

Try http://www.youroldtimebookstore.com/

Mike Tillger

Published in 1922, guessing most of us are. So I checked Wikipedia and it says, in part.



ba-dum ching

.

The author of this book and a relative wrote a series of useful books on how to do everything from making a crucible, to machine tool use and maintenance, and one on how to make an alcohol-producing still.

Buy the last first... won't need the others!

I've poured a numbed of linings for brasses that were used in light service. We didn't do much prep beyond melting off the babbitt and then re-pouring it. We placed the brass upside down on a bottle jack, gooped on some Babbitt-rite, and eyeballed the thickness against a similar axle. Never measured anything or machined it. I know this is very "shade-tree", but it worked enough for what we did, and they wore-in quickly and ran cool with very little maintenance.

At the time when I was shown how to do that, I had never poured any bearings. We only had to pour a couple, and by the time I found and ordered some books online (a few already mentioned) I realized just how forgiving they were but the project was over. I wouldn't pour them that way again, but to my knowledge it's still a continued practice which gets them from A to B.

They will readily forgive oversize, but won't deal with undersize.

dave

We recently replaced all four wheel sets under the tender of our Baldwin 2-8-2 #70 (ex-Polson Logging Co., 1922), during which we re-poured and machined all of the bearing brasses to fit the new journals. I've attached two photos to give you an idea of how we did it.

The first photo shows the mandrel arrangement. The outside diameter of the pipe is slightly less than the journal. It has four adjustable feet so that it can be placed squarely over the bearing brass. The mandrel is set high enough off the brass to allow the new babbitt to be thicker than necessary so that when it is machined to size, any imperfections in the babbitt surface are removed. I should note that we melted out all of the old babbitt and ensured the bearing brass was very clean before setting it under the mandrel. Both ends of the brass are dammed off with sheet metal and held in place by the large gear puller. A large C-clamp is used to secure the mandrel to the steel table. Babbitt-Rite is then packed in around the ends of the brass to fill any gaps.

The bearing brass is pre-heated at the same time the new babbitt is melted in a ladle.

After each bearing was poured and allowed to cool, they were set up in our Lucas horizontal mill. I previously machined a spare bearing wedge (adapter) so that it was flat and square, and secured it to the mill table first so that I didn't have to indicate in all eight brasses separately. This certainly saved a lot of machining time. Each bearing was first machined with an appropriate cutter to get the diameter correct (journal diameter plus 0.015"). Each bearing had 0.25" of babbitt remaining which should allow for many years of service. After boring, the cutter was replaced with one matching the radii of the journal at the wheel hub end, and the inside end of each bearing machined accordingly.

I should also note that the longitudinal edges of the babbitt in each bearing was chamfered in the mill to allow the journal oil sufficient space to wick up under the bearing. Lastly, I used a bearing scraper to do final clean up of the babbitt.

I'm sure there are other ways of getting the job done, perhaps some that are quicker or more efficient than how I did it, but the end result is what matters I suppose.

I hope this was of some value to your project.

Best,

Brian Wise
General Manager
Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad

Brian,

Very nice explanation and very nice work.

Howard P.

You guys could make journal brasses for the space shuttle!

dave

This is good timing. We are pouring new journals for one of our Shays. The traditional method here is using some sort of solder to "tin" the brass to make the babbitt bond to the brass shell. This has become problematic as about half the time, the Babbitt pulls loose from the shell during machining.

Any advice in this regards concerning prep of the brass would be appreciated.

Earl
Cass, WV

To see rod bearings poured, get a DVD of the 1964 Burt Lancaster movie "The Train". It may be about a third of the way into the movie. Yes it was shot in France, but in a real railroad shop.

(It's worth watching the whole movie with the director's commentary--especially the wreck scene that wiped out all but the one camera that recorded the scene.)

Yes, but in that movie they go straight from pour to service, no machining. Accurate?