I polish the black off the treads. Looks better and they stay cleaner.
I did in the past…when I used Kadee wheelsets. But after trying different brands, I prefer to use Intermountain wheelsets. That’s all I use now.
I have agree that polishing the treads tends to make the wheels run cleaner. But like Matt, I now use I-M wheels for most of my cars. The Kadee wheels have rounded plastic axle ends and do not roll as well. I still have lots of freight cars with Kadee wheels, but they were mainly older Athearn/MDC ‘Blue Box’ cars and I have been selling them off over the years. Any new freight equipment gets I-M wheels and Kadee #148 ‘whisker’ couplers. The metal ‘needle point’ axle ends of the I-M wheels give superb rolling results in plastic side frames. I also use a Micro-Mark ‘Truck Tuner’ to ream out the journals in the side frames.
Jim
Yeah, baby.
That little sucker is magic.
Rich
I too use mostly Intermountain wheel sets. I have/use mostly Kadee sprung metal trucks but remove the Kadee wheel sets and install Intermountain. The improvement in rolling quality is tremendous.
This combo rolls better than any rigid truck I have been able to find.
Sheldon
I thought about ordering one of those from micro mark, but wasn’t sure if it really helped or was just another gimmic. I will order one soon since I now see that others use it and are satisifed with it. Would nice to have some sort of review forum, where we could get info on products out there from actual model railroaders
For years, I ignored the advice of others and ran my rolling stock without tuning the trucks. I always replaced the original wheels on all of my rolling stock with Intermountain metal wheels, and I figured that was good enough. But last winter, I decided to order the Micro Mark truck tuner, and i have not regretted it.
As a test, I remove the truck from the passenger car or freight car and roll the truck down the track. Then I use the truck tuner, a small reamer, on each side of the truck where the wheel axle fits into the truck. Then I roll the truck down the track once again. The difference in performance is exceptional.
Rich
I am satisfied with the performance of my Kadee wheels (although Intermountain wheels are excellent products), and I do use a brass wire brush in a Dremel tool to remove the darkening from the wheel tread. I like the looks and the performance. You need to be careful if you hold the axle in a pliers that you do not distort it slightly during this process.
I toyed with the idea of putting a washer on the wheel so that only the outer edge of the tread would be polished, in the hopes of making the wheel “look” closer to prototype width. This turned out to be a typical Nelson pipedream futility. But it was worth trying, and now, rejecting.
I also bought one of those Minuteman jigs where you put the wheel into a clear plastic holder so that only the wheel faces show, and weather the faces which are a bit too shiny to be realistic.
http://www.minutemanscalemodels.com/category_s/54.htm
And I also use and endorse the Truck Tuner. By the way you can simulate the benefits of the truck tuner if you have short replacement Philips screwdriver heads for a cordless drill. What they can’t do is both bearings at the same time like the Truck Tuner but the general idea is there and can convince you to go buy the actual product. It is money well spent.
Dave Nelson
If you would have searched this forum for truck tuner, you would have seen how many benefit from this device and that it is not gimmick. I have had one for some years.
Rich
I only have a few cars with kadee wheelsets, but never had to polish them off as they came with the black coating worn off.
As for wheelsets, I’d perfer the branchline metal axle ones but they are out of production. Reason being is that their axles are longer than the IMs. I find that the IM axles are too short for some athearn/MDC sideframes, but the branchline ones work perfectly. IMO, Im’s work best in Walther’s rigid plastic sideframes, and the walthers wheelsets work better in the athearn sideframes.