62B Radio Rentals TV Service Van w/ GPW

[Idris]

Hi Ghosty well said if I was going to fake something I would make sure that there was no tail tell signs. The axle ends give a lot of signs away. In the factory they must have had some sort of pillar drill to round off the axel ends. Dose anybody have any info or pictures of how they done it Pete

My initial guess would be a fast-rotating hardened steel shaft with a concave end. This would be forced down on lo the end of the unhardened steel axles and the combination of heat and pressure would cause the metal to flow, creating the required mushrooming. On the other hand, close ups of worked axle ends seems to show radial striations from the centre to the outer edge. These could not possibly be created using a rotary tool and appear to indicate that the head has been formed solely by pressure applied in line with the axle. It is possible that the tool was heated, but not very much otherwise this would have had consequences for the plastic wheels.
Mis-stikes might tell us more about what the end of the tool looked like.

[petethesweet]

Hi Hugh I thought it was something like that Pete

[GHOSTHUNTER]

I have no pictures of axle production, but found this image from a Leney produced booklet showing a riveting machine. The description does not really make it clear what is being done, but a further few lines of text at the back of the booklet says glazing is riveted into the bodies and baseplates onto bodies are carried out by machines of this sort.

One riveting machine.JPG (114.61 KiB) Viewed 623 times

Ghosthunter.

[petethesweet]

Hi all can anybody say why some axles were rounded & some were crimped Pete

[johnboy]

Hi all can anybody say why some axles were rounded & some were crimped Pete

As I understand it, the early crimps were replaced with safety axles. These were safer and more secure with their rounded/domed ends than their crimped counterparts. With rough play, the wheels could come off of crimped axles too easily and the loose wheels could become a choking hazard for the kids.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Crimped ends could also snag your Child's skin.

Ghosthunter.

[johnboy]

Crimped ends could also snag your Child's skin.

Ghosthunter.

True Ghosty, it also reminds me of the Europa open bumpers and the damage they could do to skin, clothes and carpets.

[Miller]

The only heat generated during the deformation process is so low, that the lady could barely feel it when touching. Think about the fact that plastic wheels were processed and delicate woman hands had to take out the model back from the machine and place it in the tray.

In general a rivet head aquires, that the axle has to produte a minimum 1,15 times more material than its diameter. So if the axle is 1mm and the head should be 1 mm high, the end at the wheel had to be minimum of 1,15 mm long. The supernatant of 0.15 mm is the required material from which the rivet head is formed.

Infact this principle only works for the domehead on one end, which already was done in the preproduction before assembly. It is only feasible, if there is enough backpressure. The rivet head from the productionline is much smaller, because the needed backpressure would bent the axle. Viewed from the side the axle end is square shaped and only punched with a concave tool, which forms the produting square into a rounded shape.