NWSL Drive Couplings cast in Bronze

[Jay Criswell]

Good day at the foundry. When I build my drives, for light to medium weight diesels or electrics, I use the dog bone and sockets NWSL offers in Delrin. They work fine but I only use the 5/32" (4mm) socket. The set also comes with a !/8 socket that I have little use for. I decided to have the surplus 1/8" parts burned out and cast in bronze This will allow me to use these for all drives, including the heavy models. Bronze will hold up far better than brass. The reduced RPMs my drives provide should mean little wear. Biggest mistake I made was not boring them to roughly the needed size, prior to casting. Much easier to do plastic instead of bronze.

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Next we're going to try casting up some of the sprockets like the ones used in the Weaver/CLW drives. Will eliminate splitting, set screws will be easy to install, and LocTite will work also. Probably have to polish them in my tumbler prior to use. The slightest nick or flaw would probably destroy the delrin chain in no time. Should be a fun experiment.

Jay

[herronpeter]

Well, Jay, if anyone can improve on drive line components you “da man”..

How does one cast bronze?? I guess my question is how is the mold made? I used to cast my own bullets for pistol reloads but I used a 6 gang pre-made mold I bought.

Peter

[Jay Criswell]

Peter,

There is no mold. It is what's called a direct burnout. Think lost plastic.. One plastic part becomes one brass, aluminum, or in this case bronze part.

Jay

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Next we're going to try casting up some of the sprockets like the ones used in the Weaver/CLW drives. Will eliminate splitting, set screws will be easy to install, and LocTite will work also. Probably have to polish them in my tumbler prior to use. The slightest nick or flaw would probably destroy the delrin chain in no time. Should be a fun experiment.

Please do keep us informed!!

[Jay Criswell]

Looking like it might just work out.

[Chris Rock]

The craftmanship and work you do almost makes me wish my trains would break so you could fix them better or I could use your parts. It really is great to see what you are doing.

[Jay Criswell]

Chris,

Thank you. I wonder sometimes if posting this junk is even worth it. Sometimes it is.

Jay

[bob turner]

I think it is worthwhile. The fidelity you get with lost-plastic is stunning.

Bronze is good bearing material. I think a steel horney ball might be a better version if you were going to do museum-type running.

I have had zero problems with the larger glass-filled NWSL couplings, but suspect that the plastic they are currently using would fail quickly - probably the motivation for your experiment?

[Jay Criswell]

Motivation in the first paragraph.

Steel offers no better solution plus it's kinda hard to cast using investment casting process. Think about this why is steel better when bronze eats up some of the hardest steel (High Speed Tool Steel).

Bottom line, at this point, it's all speculation. All I know for sure is, it's better than brass dog bones.

Jay

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I wonder sometimes if posting this junk is even worth it. Sometimes it is.

This is far better than the junk that does get posted; actually useful.

[Jay Criswell]

Thanks RFT,

How about we just go with, there's potential?

Jay

[bob turner]

I think bronze on bronze in this application is ok. It would not be good for gears or axles. Dissimilar metals are always best.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Thanks RFT,

How about we just go with, there's potential?

Jay

There's that too!

[2railjon]

Your work is awesome! Thank You for sharing!

[Jay Criswell]

Jon,

Thanks for the compliment but, truthfully, all I did was hand them to the foundry/caster guy. He did all the work .

To me it just made sense to give it a go. Handful of parts I can't use. Do I throw them away (I rarely do) or see if I can make them more useful to me. Didn't seem like too tough a decision.

Jay