Use a drill press. You will need a piece of brass bar with a 2mm+ hole in it to cover the circa 12mm hole in the drill-presses base table and set the chuck to a sliding fit over the axle. The drill press base and chuck will be 100% square to the axle so a gentle pull on the handle will press the wheels on the axle. Said spacer will ensure the correct spacing! There's no need for the single purpose precision tool and the drill press can go on the "DIY ledger" rather than the "Toy trains ledger". :^)
I've tried it - If you apply enough force on the axle end/wheel back with a straight pull the axle pinpoint deforms. If you twist the wheel on the axle the axle fractures! I use a block of medium hard wood with the pinpoint supported into the side grain andthen press on the wheel back with some success. Generally I just avoid such wheelsets!
A properly designed small scale flange has flange contact angle of 70 degrees. The fillet curve is only critical if the flange profile is a hard to make copy of some prototype flanges. See my web page on the subject.
Unless you have built track to NMRA standards, the NMRA gauge is limited for RTR 00. The back to back dimension on these gauges (14.38mm approx) is suitable for many RTR wheels using RTR track such as Peco fine scale. The check gauge however is to large for RTR track.
My more recent tests show the NMRA recommended wheel profile RP25 is more prone to derailments compared to a properly designed wheel profile on typical sharp model railway curves. Theory and experiments I have done prove close to scale flanges are not as reliable as deeper flanges. In other words the above NMRA claims are not repeatable. This is probably due to poor experimental design, and those conducting the experiments being ignorant of engineering theory. My test results are on my web page.
-- Terry Flynn
formatting link
HO wagon weight and locomotive tractive effort estimates
Have you seen Walthers' latest wheelsets? Metal wheels with plastic axles which are not necessarily straight. These tend to derail when passing through Peco frogs when the axle is slightly bent.
The best value-for-money American wheelsets I've come across are the ones from Life-Like Proto 2000 - these too are metal wheels mounted on plastic axles, and are generally 100% true. Recommended!
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.