During the Proto48 Meeting at this year’s Chicago show, the topic of the blackened wheel treads came up. I was very surprised by how much talk there was about them and how passionate some of the folks were. It never dawned on me that some folks think it’s difficult to polish the wheel treads.

The above image shows a pair of Yoder PRR 2D-F8 50 Ton trucks straight out of the box about to find a home under an Atlas X29. Notice the blackened wheel treads.

I use a small my Dremel with a Rubber Polishing Wheel 320 Xtra Fine grit Silicon carbide. They come 100 in the bag for about $20. I think I found them on ebay a couple of years ago. Since then I may have used a half dozen of the 100 wheels. When they wear down or get a grove in them I just put on a fresh wheel.

I hold the truck in my hand and work the polishing wheel around the wheel. They can get hot so you have to work out a sequence to be able to continue to hold the truck. After about five minutes work, the wheels are polished.

What’s all the fuss? They talked about this issue longer then it takes to polish the treads on a pair of trucks.

BTW, this also works on loose wheelsets. Just polish the treads before you assemble a truck.

All done, now back to putting these under the X29.