Thanks for the help! One more thing...

Sounds good in theory, much harder in practice. Reason being is that your pressure isn't always equal on all parts of the wheel. You could end up with a flange higher in place than another if you're not careful.

A better solution (if you have access) would be to use a metal lathe to turn them down, in my mind at least. I've never had much luck trying to use a Dremel as a lathe motor.

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

How True! I'm not that familiar with the older Kato stuff, but does anyone make replacement wheelsets? Or will more recent Kato's intechange? A lathe is the only way to do it right. I have heard of mounting the wheel in some sort of collet and turning it down with an electric drill and a file, but you'd still have to be really careful. And that's assuming you could rig up a mounting into the drill of some sort. Al

First, before you do ANYTHING else, check the BALLAST on the track. There is _no_ room for high ballast at the rails with code 55 track. I use a dental scraper to clean it up - you might not have to grind the wheels at all. Check this FIRST before grinding wheels!

I _have_ ground wheels on locomotives, under power - not too difficult IF you have a light touch with the Dremel... but it _only_ works on powered wheels. I used a heavy-duty (fiber) cutoff disc, run at about 3 on my variable speed unit. You really don't have to take very much off, even with deep flanges. However, you need to take several precautions:

1) Tape over all openings in the trucks and body so the metal chips can't get into the mechanism or (worse yet) the motor! 2) Grind at right angles to the wheel spin, so that the chips go AWAY from the body, not over it... just in case you didn't do so well following the instructions in #1. Setting up a shop vac to run as you grind and collect the chips isn't a bad idea, either. 3) Use test leads to run the power to the pickups... and tape over them as well. 4) Only take off as much as you have to - use a mic or caliper to make periodic measurements. 5) Run the locomotive at fairly high speed as you grind - it will keep any "out of round" errors to a minimum. 6) Use a jeweler's file to clean up any burrs after grinding.

All this said, tho, don't even _try_ it if you don't have rock-steady hands.

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