Brake shoe material

[Chris Hollands]

Here is acouple of photos of the brake linings

[cp4449]

You could use a piece of hard oak. Cut to profile, glued on. They use oak brake shoes on the cable cars in San francisco

[Harlock]

I second aluminum. Barry Hauge switched from bronze to aluminum for a brake kit he made for Steve Easlon's 2 1/2" trucks for that reason. More grip.

[rkcarguy]

I've gotta bump this old thread. To those who used the Mcmaster Carr material, how flexible is it? Did it bend easy enough to JB weld to your shoe and stay on there?
Which product was used?

https://www.mcmaster.com/#brake-lining/=1d10yog

I'm hoping to use this on my freight cars against a 4-1/2" diameter tire.

[ccvstmr]

rk...have used metal-free brake 'n clutch lining material for years. McMaster only carries the strips down to 3/16" thick. Plenty of wear material there. Could use 1/4" thick material for more "wear time". There are other places where you can find 1/8" thick material (Ebay).

Brake shoes are scored with a saw (hack or band saw). Without the score marks, you end up squeezing out most of the adhesive when clamped. I use 5 minute epoxy to bond friction material to the shoes...usually alum or even bronze. Don't mix too much epoxy at one time. Time flies when you're having fun!

If you're not familiar with the brake shoe casting...this is one of Tom Bee's before he switched over to water jet cut shoes/hangers. This was an older shoe. Original brake lining material was worn...after 15 years of brake service on a propane fuel car that always followed the locomotive. Opted to replace all the brake lining pads. Used a shop knife to cut away the old brake pad material. Made the cut marks on the shoe. Tom has this done now as part of the water jet cutting process.

Have some wood blocks turned to the wheel diameter to clamp the brake shoe, brake material and form all in one assembly. After the glue cures... excess glue and brake pad material is cut off with a sharp shop knife. Sometimes, you might need to bevel the edge that runs in the wheel radius. If not, that too will "wear in" over time. Would rather have the brake pad fully contacting the wheel tread.

The "form surface" on the half round disk was spun with a 2.5 deg taper to match the brake shoe taper. "UP" just tells me which way to align the form block before clamping. Else, the brake pad has a tendency to slide out of position. Don't ask how I know this!

Hope that helps. Carl B.

[rkcarguy]

Thanks for all the information ccv. I've commonly used a rough grinding wheel on the surface or a cut-off wheel to grind a waffle type pattern for the epoxy to grab when working with such things, so no problem there. My biggest concern was just that it was flexible enough to conform to the radius of the wheels/shoes without snapping or having so much springiness that it wouldn't stay attached to the shoe.

[rkcarguy]

I just received my order of friction material from McMaster, the 1-1/2" wide by 3/16". It's very flexible, similar to a stiff rubber sheet, and was the same metal-free lining ccvstmr posted about. Should work great.
I bought 4 pieces 12" long for about $17.

[hagrid]

In the interest of not creating duplicate threads, bumping this 5 year old thread. I am renovating the brakes on my tender. The brass shoes don't offer much grip on dirty wheels. When I have cleaned up the treads of the wheels, the brass shoes are pretty much worthless.

Can someone point me to the exact material they are using on the McMaster website? I looked, and could not find it.

[Harold_V]

The brass shoes don't offer much grip on dirty wheels. When I have cleaned up the treads of the wheels, the brass shoes are pretty much worthless.

It seems strange to me that anyone would advise the use of brass or bronze for brake shoes. These alloys tend to be good bearing materials, so while they most likely would wear well, they would have little effect on braking, especially on gray iron wheels, which are also reasonably good bearings. A high friction coefficient material (like brake lining) would be far more desirable.

Am I wrong?

H

[Bill Shields]

You are correct, but for many smaller locos, the brakes are for parking.

622K341 McMaster is what I use on my 1.5"

It is pretty stiff, so you have to serrate the back side to bend to smaller diameters.

Some of us also use crappy soft aluminum as it is not much of a bearing material and cleans up easier.

[pat1027]

The original shoes engine and tender were machined from Micarta which is a fabric resin composite. They seemed to work fine until needing replacement. On the locomotive I installed cast bronze shoes and on the tender relined using McMaster 6090K21. Stripes were epoxied onto the shoes using the wheels as a form. It is a stiff material and needed to be serrated as Bill said.

Both the bronze and relined shoes work better than the originals. The Micarta would go quickly from lightly dragging to locking up the wheels. The bronze shoes give broader ranged of drag and barely lock up the drivers. The lining material also has a broader range of adjustment and it is easier to set the tender brake to hold the train back as I come down grade. The maximum coefficient of friction of the lining materials is .35 which is less than what Bill used. If I did it again I might the higher rated material.

Next step is the cars. it's more fun to pull a train down grade than be pushed down grade by it.