Urthane wheels

[dpeterson3]

I'm working on a frisco mountain in brass in HO. I have the tender built in CAD, and will hopefully start building sometime in the next week. While I'm nowhere close to building these, I have a question about drive wheels. So far, I haven't been able to find the correct wheels since the Bowser stock seems to be running out, so I'm looking into building some. I've checked the brass backshop, and there's someone over there who builds O-gauge wheels, but I don't think his technique will work for HO well just because the wheels are that much smaller. So to my question, has anyone tried/heard of casting Urthane wheels? I know they make casters and other solid wheels out of the stuff, and it can be done at home. I'm thinking the center would be cast in urthane, and then a metal tire applied for grip and power pickup. To make the mold, I would build the wheel in cad, and have it extruded on a 3d printer (my school does it cheap for students). Then, make a silicone mold from the printed part and cast. It would still have to be machined some, but I can get access to a lathe. Thoughts?

 

[Iron Horseman]

American Flyer used to have drivers molded with some plastic sort of substance with metal tires (but it was before the days of plastic so Bakelite perhaps?). I had a pre-war unit that despite the glue I used I could not keep the tire on the wheel. Of course that was also the days before superglue and gorilla glue. So it might work.

 

[dpeterson3]

I may have answered my won question. I came across this site today
http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/gcnc/
which discusses how to make molds and cast resin engineering parts at home (gears are an example), so it looks like driver centers are very possible. He creates the mold on a CNC, but mentions that it can be done other ways. One goal here is to avoid the expense of purchasing a CNC mill since it really doesn't fit the college student budget. That's why I'm thinking either 3D printed or by hand.