73129 in need of tyres.

Well, £125 would pay for a guy for about half a day, so you reckon that someone could cut off a both tyres, mount the wheelset in a lathe and skim both wheel centres, measure them, stick a couple of tyres on a borer and machine them to the correct size ready for heating up and dropping onto the wheelsets, then letting them cool before mounting them in a wheel lathe and finish turning to profile all in one day? Or two guys can do that in half a day, because that's essentially what you are saying.
I'm not saying that you have no knowledge of re-tyring, certainly probably more than me, as I've only ever watched, but I'd humbly suggest that your perception of costs is way off the mark.

 

Hotspur, you may have experience in a wheelshop and know of the processes involved and what it takes, but your understanding of cost isn't as such. The £1250 has to include man hours, but if we use your £125 figure, if one man works for 8 hours at say £10 an hour, then that is £80 in one day so that £125 roughly covers 1 and a half days. But then there are workshop overheads etc still to be added, and one man cannot retyre an entire wheel by themself in one and a half days so your £125 would not get the job finished.

--EDIT-- Steve's post above suggests the cost of 1 man per hour is closer to £30, so your £125 doesn't even last a full day!

 

Am I right in saying there are two places you can go to for this work, the SDR and Rileys?

46118

 

Just to go through the process that we used togo through at BREL York in the wheelshop in the early 80s.
Admittedley this is for coach wheelsets but principle similar.
Wheelset brought into shop.
Wheelset steam cleaned.
Old balance weights removed.
Gibson ring key removed if possible.
Wheelset loaded into lathe, Gibson ring turned out.
Wheelset removed turned, reloaded and operation repeated on other end.
Wheelset rolled out.
Overhead crane upends wheelset to vertical, loads into tyre furnace ring set in floor.
Tyre expanded and drops off. Old tyre removed for scrap.
Wheelset turned and replaced in furnace other end tyre removed.
Allow to cool to workshop average temperature.
Reload into lathe and skim mating surface to remove irregularities.
Remeasure diameter of both ends
Load new tyre onto tyre lathe turn to required diameter applying tolerance for shrink fit.
When done load new tyre into furnace, heat.
O/H crane loads tyreless wheel set to vertical, when ready lowers into prepared tyre.
Fit new gibson ring.
Repeat process for other end.
Allow to cool again.
If required load wheelset into journal lathe for profiling of bearing surfaces.
Load wheel set into wheel lathe and turn to required diameter and profile.
Fit axleboxes if required.
On completion wheelset loaded into the wheel balancer for fitting of balance weights as required.
Wheelset now ready for use.

This process was carried out 5 days a week over 2 shifts, Days and nights.
If a new axle was required that was also carried out on the axle press.
I think we used to go through about 80 tyre rings a week and maybe 10 or so new wheel discs.

Now put a timing to each operation and see how long it will take you.

 

Useing your figures..

5 days per week at 2 shifts = 10 shifts/week.

80 tyre rings/week gives 8 tyre rings/shift = say 1 tyre ring/hour.

All you need to know now is how many blokes employed per shift and you have the man hours per tyre.

Man hours per tyre x £30/£40 hr (wages cost ) plus say 50% works overheads = cost per tyre.

Not rocket science just bl**dy hard graft.

 

given your username, im not sure we can trust your figures....

 

Just one minor observation, 73129's tyres will not be held on by Gibson ring.

Regards

 

And all these bag of fag packet figures take no account of the building and machinery costs and overheads.

Decapitalise a the cost of acquiring and powering up a tyring machine and the workshop in which the work is being done and add that in too.

 

So Riley's got the job then?

 

I hope you learned the art of tea making during your few months in a wheelshop. Becuase you learnt nothing about economics.

 

My £25-30/hour did take such things into account. Well, I think they did. If you're now telling me that machine shop wages costs are £25/hr then I need to go back to work! I take your point that there is not much in there for overheads but I can get good engineering labour for that price.

 

Just look at the hourly rate charged by your local garage to fix your car.
Also I know that my charge out rate to the client is about 2.5 times my hourly gross rate to cover overheads and a 10-15% profit for a project.

 

So that's all you've got to say is it?

Isn't it funny how people with a weak argument quickly resort to insults because they can't defend their position.

 

I suppose I made a basic error in assuming that most people would be smart enough to understand that the point is that the projected cost of £20,000 is the subject of discussion, not whether it could possibly be done at a tenth of that price. I didn't realise that there would be so many people on here so enthusiastic to support astronomical costs.

I didn't think anyone in their right mind would pay a full rate for someone to stand and watch a tyre cooling down. Watching paint dry is almost as thrilling. During heating and cooling cycles, other work can be carried out. If you think more about what actually requires skilled attention, then it's easier to close in on the real costs. I'm not going to analyse it any more, because it seems to be a waste of time on here. However I will say that at £20,000 for fitting one set of tyres, it would almost be possible to fund the equipment to do the job from that as well.

 

I'd broadly go along with that list, except to say that I wouldn't expect the cost to include cleaning the wheelsets etc.

We used to machine the back of the tyre to release the ring, which was often reused. Then the tyre was heated so that the wheelset could be lifted out. Which is a waste of time and gas when you think about it. But that's the way it was usually done. Nowadays you would just cut them off.

 

All this arguing about the cost is not helping to get the engine back in steam and on the rails! How about some constructive ideas for fund raising the required work.

 

Are you assuming everyone on here sits on the same side of the fence ?

Sadly if there's not many who can do the work, then they can command the price and if you want the engine to work.. youve not got much choice.

Maybe if the poster has experience and see's high profit potential maybe should consider entering the market as a new supplier ?

Seems someone suggested a possibly cheaper source for the tender / pony wheels ? I'm sure they did their due diligence first, but maybe splitting the work is cheaper ?

 

Sell slices of the old tyre ?

 

Twas me who suggested Baguley Engineering. They are not new to the business and the last time I was there they had, from memory, 14 wheelsets in for re-tyring. Only two sets from a steam loco, the rest were for diesels. Think about where the likes of Hunslet Engine Co, cement works, quarries and others go for this sort of work. I don't know about the SDR but I've never seen any from these firms at Bury.