Cast-Iron Car Wheels. [Volume: 8, Issue: 3, 1889, pp. 153-170]

No. 3.]

CHARCOAL IRON WORKERS.

153

Cast-Iron Car Wheels.
The following extracts from a discussion upon the manufacture
of chilled cast-iron car wheels, are presented to our readers in the belief that there will be found much of interest in the views expressed
by the prominent founders who participated in the discussions at
two meeting of the New York Railroad Club. We have condensed the data from very full and lengthy discussions. to bring
out the points of special value to the readers of the JOURNAL,
making the remarks appear at times as disconnected, to the prejudice of the speakers, but the'discussion was much too voluminous for reprinting, and we have attempted to get the items of
especial interest, into the most convenient arrangement without
altering the phraseology of the participants in the discussion, in
preference to placing the data in better shape at the risk of misinterpreting the opinions of others.
Mr. J. N. Barr read a paper in which he stated that a perfect
cast-iron car wheel should answer to the following description:
1. The tread should be perfectly cylindrical.
2. The tread and inside of flange should be perfectly smooth,
and free from any defect that would impair the integrity and
homogellity of the metal forming the parts subject to abrasion,
and should conform in outline to the chill.
3. The body of the wheel should be sound and smooth, and
free from any of the defects usually seen in castings.
4. The wheel when broken should show a shell of white iron,
extending inward from the parts subject to abrasion, not less than
three-eighths of an inch, nor more than three-fourths of an inch
thick, and this shell should not vary in thickness in the same
wheel.
5. There should not be a distinct line of demarcation between
the white and grey iron, neither should the gradation from white
to grey be very undecided.
6. The grey iron forming the body of the wheel, should be of
medium grain, dark color, a ragged fracture, free from imperfections or white iron.
In practice wheels never realize the above description, their im
perfection being more or less impaired by the following defects: