O Rail production


T

Ted Lewis

New Member
Happy New Year everyone.
Can anyone with sheet metal forming expertise advise me about continuously forming Signode Strap (banding) into O rail?. I need rail. Lots of rail. I propose to circumnavigate my privacy-fenced yard with track at waist-height for fast running of big consists. Say 400 feet of track, thats 1200 feet of three-rail. I have worked out a method to glue down the rail and a bus system for power since voltage drop will be a real concern. The Signode Strap could be drawn throgh a set of dies or rollers I suppose. But the stages in forming to shape are best left to experts in such matters. Any advice is appreciated.
I have a Lionel 2055, but the real show will be an ABBA set of E3's, all powered by a system similar to Athearn's old Hi-F drive. Remember Athearn's old "Hustler"? I'm going to get the town cop to use his radar gun on this monster! Thanks.
 
I'm no sheet metal expert but using flat steel strapping and then trying to form it into tubular rail seems like a daunting task. It think the strapping steel is too flexible to begin with, and forming it into a tube would weaken the steel even further, assuming it would hold its shape. I'm quite certain there's no machine in existence that will do this, so it would be a custom job, probably with a drawing machine with the right shaped dies. Even though 1200 feet sounds like a lot, that's a pretty small time order for a custom fab shop.

You can buy 99 feet of code 148 nickel silver rail from Micro Engineering for about $100 on-line. That's about a dollar a foot, so it would be $1200 for all the rail you needed. You can contact a custom fab shop and see what they can do, although steel rail outdoors is going to be a much bigger maintenance problem than nickel silver. I suspect you will pay much more for custom made steel rail and get an inferior product.
 
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Re: O rail

Thanks for the sound perspective, and the M.E. source. Rusting is definitely a consideration, and a Sun Kink is a possibility too. I may just have to buy good rail. Sometimes I like to think I can save a buck, then later regret trying to be cheap. I'll have enough to do trying to find double-shaft A.C. motors in the low-voltage range to turn all those axles. I'll continue the thread as I proceed.
 
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