Western Railroad Discussion > Operators Manual For a Sellers 50 inch car wheel Lathe

OERM has a 50 inch Sellers car wheel lathe that has sat in storage for 30 years. We are now going to make it functional and would like to locate anyone that still has one or that has the Operators manual. We have the schematics but would really like to know how everything is supposes to work. We can guess but it would be better if we could see the actual manual.

As I recall, that is the one from the WP passenger yard in Oakland, which OET obtained from the WP shops in Sac, where it had been moved after the CZ was discontinued (and APL moved into Middle Harbor Rd).

If so, it has two, four-sided turret toolposts. The round tool is used to make a rough cut deep enough to get underneath the hardened part of the tread and tip of the flange so the three profiling tools can contour the wheel tread, back of the flange, and outer rim of the tread. Hegensheits (wheel peelers) don't waste as much metal re-contouring, but they are a lot more expensive to obtain. Too bad Gil isn't around anymore -- he was a WP carman/machinist at Oak who ran the thing to turn wheelsets for the CZ.

There used to be a company on the web that specialized in sellin manuals, parts books, etc for old/vintage machine tools.

If you happen to run across a company selling old manuals, I sure would like to try and track it down.

dwalthaus Wrote:
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> OERM has a 50 inch Sellers car wheel lathe that
> has sat in storage for 30 years. We are now going
> to make it functional and would like to locate
> anyone that still has one or that has the
> Operators manual. We have the schematics but would
> really like to know how everything is supposes to
> work. We can guess but it would be better if we
> could see the actual manual.

you might want to check with the archivist at the Franklin Institute in Philly. They might have some archives.