Railroad Bits
 

I occasionally happen across bits of railroad track and mounting
plates. Is any of this stuff machinable?
http://home.att.net/~galt_57/railroad.jpg

Dave wrote:

I occasionally happen across bits of railroad track and mounting
plates. Is any of this stuff machinable?
http://home.att.net/~galt_57/railroad.jpg


Yes, I've had good luck machining railroad steel, everything I've tried.
Welds OK too. I have not tried track but lots of guys mill the top off
of a bit of track to get something to pound on.

By the way, like many other things the company that sells things to the
railroads has an online catalog. Handy to look up track data:
http://www.akrailroad.com/table_contents.asp

GWE

Dave wrote:
I occasionally happen across bits of railroad track and mounting
plates. Is any of this stuff machinable?
http://home.att.net/~galt_57/railroad.jpg

I don't know how much of it is still around but years ago I remember
trying to use track plates and spikes that were so old that they were
made of wrought (forged) iron instead of steel. They were difficult if
not impossible to cut with an acetylene torch and welds often broke
because of the laminar structure.
Engineman1

Grant Erwin wrote:

Yes, I've had good luck machining railroad steel,
everything I've tried. Welds OK too. I have not tried
track but lots of guys mill the top off of a bit of track
to get something to pound on.


Thanks, I see it when I'm out hiking and have not wanted to haul it
home if it was worthless stuff.

Dave wrote:
I occasionally happen across bits of railroad track and mounting
plates. Is any of this stuff machinable?
http://home.att.net/~galt_57/railroad.jpg


In Japan, most of the railway stations have
structural components made from old rails.
Seems to cut, drill and weld fine for them.

Dave wrote:

I occasionally happen across bits of railroad track and mounting
plates. Is any of this stuff machinable?
http://home.att.net/~galt_57/railroad.jpg

Generally on a stove in Louisiana....

Tom

I missed the staff meeting but the minutes show "Dave"
wrote back on 1 Feb 2005 09:36:07 -0800 in
rec.crafts.metalworking :
I occasionally happen across bits of railroad track and mounting
plates. Is any of this stuff machinable?

It is steel is it not?

Yes, it is machinable.

But there are "issues" with working with railroad rails, mostly having
to do with work hardening of the bearing face, the place where the wheels
roll on the rails. The home machinist means of fixing this is to put the
piece of rail in your fireplace, build a nice fire, and let the metal
anneal over night. Remove, clean up and mill as per normal.

--
pyotr filipivich.
as an explaination for the decline in the US's tech edge, James
Niccol wrote "It used to be that the USA was pretty good at
producing stuff teenaged boys could lose a finger or two playing with."

pyotr filipivich wrote:


But there are "issues" with working with railroad rails, mostly having
to do with work hardening of the bearing face, the place where the wheels
roll on the rails. The home machinist means of fixing this is to put the
piece of rail in your fireplace, build a nice fire, and let the metal
anneal over night. Remove, clean up and mill as per normal.


... or just use carbide tooling

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 09:09:22 -0800, Grant Erwin
wrote:

pyotr filipivich wrote:


But there are "issues" with working with railroad rails, mostly having
to do with work hardening of the bearing face, the place where the wheels
roll on the rails. The home machinist means of fixing this is to put the
piece of rail in your fireplace, build a nice fire, and let the metal
anneal over night. Remove, clean up and mill as per normal.


.. or just use carbide tooling

A kid brought me over a 18" section of really heavy rail to make an
anvil out of. Clamping it down to the table of my MasterMill, I
installed by very best carbide inserted face mill, calculated speeds
and feeds and melted off everyone of those teeth in about the first 8
inchs.

that **** is HARD.

We finally finished it, and it came out nice..but the second one he
did..we did the bonfire trick and it machined like annealed 440c.
Sweet job to machine once its been annealed and all that work
hardening is softened up.

Gunner






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