Rowell ladle at the Railroad Q.

[Rooster]

I read Duke's thread on smelting and saw the link to buy them from a company that apparently services rail yards. Why would they need ladles that can pour up to 100 pounds worth of molten metal for? What kind of metal? How much does a railcar weigh in boolits? :p

Having never worked on the Railroad I was curious and I figured that you ol'-timers (Ha!) knew the why-fors.

[wills]

Why do they make spring winders and bandsaw blade welders? Perhaps they have found some niche products that make a good profit.

[Rooster]

Good point, probably correct too. Thanks for the quick reply.

[briang]

Complete shot in the dark here but maybe babbit bearings for the wheels on the cars.

[Just Duke]

Why do they make spring winders and bandsaw blade welders? Perhaps they have found some niche products that make a good profit.


Hi again Wills. :-D

[billyb]

I read Duke's thread on smelting and saw the link to buy them from a company that apparently services rail yards. Why would they need ladles that can pour up to 100 pounds worth of molten metal for? What kind of metal? How much does a railcar weigh in boolits? :p

Having never worked on the Railroad I was curious and I figured that you ol'-timers (Ha!) knew the why-fors.

I worked on the railroad for 33 years. Rail cars and engines do not use poured bearings. They were fased out by federal mandate several years ago. The old journal type cars had a large brass bearing with a oil bathed babbet lined bearing serface. When the oil resevour ran dry the bearing over heated and caught fire. The term used was a hot box. The rolling stock now use roller bearings. On the cars that used the babbet type bearings, the bearings were purchased ready to use, never saw a bearing poured. They would jack up the car pull the old bearing and replace it with a new one. Bill

[Mtman314]

I used to work in a foundry for 8 years and one thing that we did alot of was an alloy of 50/50 al/cu. Was told they use it for connections we shipped it out in large broken chunks in 55 gal drums.

[Bret4207]

It's just a company that made a variety of products over the years. The Advance Car Mover is basically a large lever built to fit on rail and to move rail cars by hand. I onlt know because I saw one at a museum. It's not at all unusual for an industrial supply company to make a range of products. For instance, SAECO (Santa Anita Engineering Company) make restaurant machinery, coffee grinders or roasters I believe. Allis Chalmers made farm equipment, electrical generators and parts for nuclear reactors. International Harvester made farm equipment, refrigerators and trucks. Weren't Kelvinator and Philco part of Ford?

As for industry still pouring babbit bearings, it may not be common, but there are still folks pouring metal that the Rowell ladles work fine for all over the place.

[anachronism]

There are still companys around that refurbish old trains for scenic tours & museums. I've seen them pour babbit bearings before, but I'm sure it's no longer a mainstream process.

[dominicfortune00]

Allis Chalmers made farm equipment, electrical generators and parts for nuclear reactors.

Allis Chalmers also made oil circuit breakers and hydroelectric dam turbines.


International Harvester made farm equipment, refrigerators and trucks.

International Harvester also made M1 Garands.

[herb101]

Railroad track use to be bolted together a the the joint now they are cast together from molten steel , if you have never seen it done it is quite a sight.

[hammerhead357]

herb sorry they are not cast, it is a weld. It is a special process that uses magnesieum (sp) and iron and probably some other metals that I can't remember right now. All of the rail joints are preheated and then the metals are lighted and when everything reaches the correct temp. the weld is done by temp. reaction. But is quite a show to watch......Wes

[Bret4207]

Thermite welding. Quite the magical transformation. Is that the method still used? I saw CSZ doing some rail replacement a few years back and it looked like there was an automated arc welder doing the job.

[billyb]

Thermite welding. Quite the magical transformation. Is that the method still used? I saw CSZ doing some rail replacement a few years back and it looked like there was an automated arc welder doing the job.

They still use the process on the BNSF, the outfit I used to work for. The rail is laid in sections several hundred feet long, It is welded in the rail shop, loaded onto special cars and taken to territory it is need in. They use a special clamp on the web of the rail and pull the new RIBBON Rail off of the cars by moving the rail train at 1-2 MPH. The main line rail has a joint in it every several hunderd feet. When they have a rail brake on the main line, happens in cold weather quite a bit, they bring out the thermite and weld the brake. Bill

[schutzen]

The utility industry still uses poured babbit journal bearings on steam turbines, large pumps, and large fans. Most are no longer poured on site, but the bearing housings are shipped to a central repair shop where they are poured. When returned to the site they are scraped to fit.

[Shiloh]

Complete shot in the dark here but maybe babbit bearings for the wheels on the cars.

That's what it is for.

They were used for the babbit bearings on drive rods of steam locomotives. I don't know what they are used for now. Journal bearings maybe?
I thought everything was roller bearings now.

Maven would know for sure.

SHiloh

[Tom Herman]

herb sorry they are not cast, it is a weld. It is a special process that uses magnesieum (sp) and iron and probably some other metals that I can't remember right now. All of the rail joints are preheated and then the metals are lighted and when everything reaches the correct temp. the weld is done by temp. reaction. But is quite a show to watch......Wes

Thermite, or Goldschmidt reactions are a scream! The priciple is this: You use a chemically active metal (one with high available energy) and a lower energy metal oxide (source of Oxygen). There is a point when you heat them up together where you push the material over an energy barrier and the active metal strips the Oxygen from the metal oxide, creating an active metal oxide, liberating huge amounts of energy, and a white hot molten metal.
For welding steel, Aluminum is usually the metal used, and it is mixed with an iron oxide. That way, you get Aluminum Oxide and molten Iron.
The same reaction can be used with a lot of metals.
At work, I get to "CADweld". I have to bond copper to copper at radio sites.
I use Graphite molds, preheat them and the wire with a torch to drive out any water (like casting Lead, any water will explode when molten, white hot metal hits it. This is to be avoided at all costs).
Then I load a "shot" with the mixture of Aluminum powder, Copper Oxide, and other Oxides. The material produces something like a bronze, so I know it's not pure Copper. I suspect with a name like CADweld, it may contain a percentage Cadmium and other nasties.
The material has a "starting thermite" mixture on top of it that easily ignites and triggers the main reaction. I drop a spark in, and in a fraction of a second, the whole mess goes white hot and is done.
It's spectacular alright! And a lot of fun when done right.

Happy Shootin'! -Tom

[Down South]

Back in the days when I worked saw mills it was quite common to replace a babbit bearing. We poured our replacement bearings. We also used a lot of babbit as spacers under chipper blades. The blade would be sharpened in a machine designed especially for sharpening these type blades. The blades would then be put in a jig that held the edge of the blades in a certain position. The blades had three Y looking grooves in the bottom. Another jig was placed over the top of the grooves in the bottom of the blades that reached the bottom of the jig. This jig had pour holes that babbit was ladle poured into. What this did was ensure each blade was the same height when clamped into a chipper. Using the babbit spacers we could use from new to almost completely worn out blades and they would all be the correct height when clamped in place.