Used a similar method when replacing industrial grinding wheels. Before mounting, the new wheel was gently tapped with a hammer handle. If it rang, OK. If it gave a flat tapping sound it was cracked and therefore dangerous.
Thats what I figured it was but from different experience. I was running a broach with a bunch of powder metal parts. Pulled up one and when I set it on the machine to run the sound it made wasn't right. Got to looking at the part and it was broke almost the entire way across.
_" then realised(sp) his hammer had a crack in it."_ Doesn't work that way. You can still find rolls of dimes that have a silver dime in them, prior to 1964. Undo the roll and drop all 20 of them on a solid surface. If one of them rings like a bell, it is a silver dime. Same thing with quarters, just far more rare. The same would hold true with wheels. Doesn't matter what you hit them with. If there is no crack in it, it will ring like a bell.
My great grandfather used to be on a wheel tapping gang. I say gang as there were three of them. One tapped the train wheel with the tuning fork, the second guy listened to the sound the fork made & it was then listened to by the third guy so as to act as a check on the second guy. My grandfather used to be the third guy. This was during WW2 & was considered such an important job & so vital to the war effort, he didn't have to fight in the war.
@vegastrina Scrap is so much more efficient than mining iron ore and smelting. Britan built almost 1,000 ships during the war, millions of guns and shells. The Merlin engine in a Spitfire weighs more than a Smart car, and over 150,000 were produced.
@@vegastrinaThere was a shortage of spare parts for cars and trucks. Recycling parts from scrapped vehicles helped keep the whole country from grinding to a halt.
A friend of mine was mentioning this to his grandson at the Glasgow transport museum. A member of staff heard him & came across, handed him a tapping hammer & asked if he wanted to see if he could hear the bad wheel on the exhibit.
Because it won't necessarily go flat if it's a reinforced sidewall and/or it's a dually / multiple axles, so the other good tyres stop the weight of the truck from pushing it to the ground? But it'll still have a lot less spring to it when pressed on from the side? (I know my somewhat-reinforced car tyres start going soft before they show more visible flatness... kicking the tyres for a quick check does actually have at least a little value)
When train wheels had brass bearings in the box instead of roller bearings we'd tap the brass to hear the sound. It didn't exactly ring, but you could definitely tell a good one from one that was anout to fail. A " hot box" was nothing to sneeze at. Smoke and flames comming out meant the end of that axel was burning off.
The ring of a pot of unknown provenance can also tell you whether it is earthenware or stoneware, which tells you whether it will withstand the shock of being used in an oven.
A metallurgist, or just anyone familiar with metals, can tell if a piece of cast metal has cracks just by the sound it makes when hit with a hammer. When a bell is cracked it no longer chimes but has a dull, short bing instead, the same for any piece of metal that should be solid all the way through. For anyone thinking "Shouldn't they test the wheels before they go on the train?", they do, but then they also test them periodically after that because wheels can crack from being used.
The same for stone. A mason or sculptor ‘sounds’ the stone by hitting it with a hammer, if it rings, you know the stone is ‘true’. ( without internal crack or fissure. ). The origin of the terms ‘Ring of truth’. Or ‘sound investment’.
I was on a train coming back from Penzance. It must’ve been at a station in Devon of which I cannot remember exactly looking out of the window at night time and hearing the wheel tapper going along the train opposite that was at the station. It was sometime in the 70s a memory that’s being kept with me for 50 years never forgotten
@@craigkdillon Penzance is a sleepy little town in the south of England and the last place anyone would expect to find pirates, Gilbert and Sullivan wrote comedic theatre plays and the idea of pirates invading a small town within a stone's throw of some of Britain's major naval ports during the golden age of piracy seemed funny to them. It worked and the Pirates of Penzance became a hit with audiences, it was the first show they debuted somewhere other than the UK letting American audiences see it first, and it became quite a hit on Broadway, introducing Americans to the incredible talent of Gilbert and Sullivan.
His explanation of why he taps the wheels sounds like the new england weather stick. If snow falls off the wheel, he knows it is snowing. If water falls off the wheel it is raining. If he doesn't hear anything, the train has been stolen.
@@MrDavidknigge perhaps the word you're looking for is "imitable" ? No such word as mitable. Imitable - can be imitated. inimitable - incapable of imitation or unique [the sense I meant it] mitable - not a valid English word, There's always the online dictionaries
My first real job was in Metrology (measurements). They had a sign that, as best as I remember, said "This guy rejected 200 train wheels until it was discovered the testing hammer was defective. Test equipment needs to be tested."
Reminds me of a joke my dad told me (it's such a dad joke), it's a visual joke but I'll describe the physical parts... A man goes to the doctor and says "Doctor it really hurts when I do this.." - *press a finger in to your knee* "And this.." - *press the same finger in to your abdomen* "And even this.." - *press the finger in to your cheek* "Have you ever seen anything like this?" The doctor looks the man in the eye and says "Yes, you've got a broken bone in your finger."
That's a good skill to have... knowing how to respond in a snappy but polite and friendly way to clueless superiors who aren't really interested in your answer but must be seen to say something. Gets it over with, everyone has a chuckle, job done.
Believe it or not, when you are at the grocery and want to pick a good cantaloupe, thump it while holding it next to your ear. You have to rotate it several times, thumping along the way, but if the thumps have a slight resonance to them, the cantaloupe is firm and will be good. Sound is a good way to test a lot of things.
Hence the 1970s TV show. The Wheeltappers and Sunters Social Club! Before the Tories sold of British Rail we had a national railway system that worked. Years back I was in London and had missed the last train home. The staff said I could ride in a car of a freight train to get me home before normal services in the morning. So I took it. Can anyone imagine that happening today with all the health and safety nonsense and train operating company 'fiefdoms'? I mention this journey because on the journey the train stopped and the engineer got out and started hitting the wheels! It was explained that he suspected a wheel was damaged! Will Hay, comedian - the guy tapping the wheels - was quite an astronomer!
I wonder if wheel tapping is still carried out since privatisation? Or was that something that got "Risk Assessed" out of existence, on the grounds that if a wheel is cracked, it will be discovered when it falls off.
@@realityhurtstoomuch8830 Back in the day after a missed last train out of London I'd also done the same. Back then we were more personally responsible and more situationally aware and could handle ourselves.
So now you know why wheeltappers tapped wheels! Tapping wheels is a skill learnt by wheeltappers over time. When the wheel is tapped, the wheeltapper listens for a change of note...as the wheeltapper taps, a sudden dip in tone tells the wheeltapper, ( who has just tapped the wheel), that there is a possible crack in the tapped wheel...in which case the affected, tapped wheel which the wheeltapper has just tapped, has to be changed...after it too has been tapped of course!
These days they also have arrays of microphones alongside the tracks to listen for suspect wheel bearings and flat spots etc. The wagons have RFID tags so they can ID the correct wagon.
Can somebody please tell me what movie this is from? Americans didn't get many of these classic British comedies, but I've gotten hold of some of the Ealing Studio films and they're wonderful. Thanks in advance.
In that scene when the water came out, it was with more force than they expected, one of the female actors was washed onto the tracks and broke her leg.
A cracked bell will have a dull tone rather than a long chime because a piece of cast metal with cracks, even hard to see cracks, can't ring all the way through. So tappers can use their ears to tell if something has been cast with defects or if something such as a train wheel has cracked during it's use. The irony in this clip is that although it looks as though the mayor is getting annoyed with the tapper it would most likely be the other way around, with the tapper telling anyone nearby to shut up so he could listen to the ring coming from the wheel, but obviously the movie is playing it for laughs.
I can hear a crack in spent ammo brass before i reload it. Put 3 or 4 in your hand and shake around. The cracked one has a higher pitched ‘ding’ sound to it.
Every so often the automatic equipment doesn't detect a fractured wheel in time, and then there's bad news. At least engines don't have side and main rods, to that danger is eliminated.
Used a similar method when replacing industrial grinding wheels. Before mounting, the new wheel was gently tapped with a hammer handle. If it rang, OK. If it gave a flat tapping sound it was cracked and therefore dangerous.
Thats what I figured it was but from different experience. I was running a broach with a bunch of powder metal parts. Pulled up one and when I set it on the machine to run the sound it made wasn't right. Got to looking at the part and it was broke almost the entire way across.
Same with mugs or dinner plates. If they sound flat they have a crack somewhere.
I heard of a Wheeltapper had in a single week condemned every wheel tested, then realised his hammer had a crack in it.
😂😂😂
🤣🤣🤣🤣
you made that up,just now
@@davidjones-vx9ju While I never heard of a wheeltapper before, I have heard variations of this joke set in other scenarios.
_" then realised(sp) his hammer had a crack in it."_ Doesn't work that way. You can still find rolls of dimes that have a silver dime in them, prior to 1964. Undo the roll and drop all 20 of them on a solid surface. If one of them rings like a bell, it is a silver dime. Same thing with quarters, just far more rare.
The same would hold true with wheels. Doesn't matter what you hit them with. If there is no crack in it, it will ring like a bell.
If the train goes “clang” there’s something wrong.
If it goes “clang, clang, clang” it’s a trolley.
What if it goes ring ring ring ?
@@iamnegan1515 Nothing, but the bell went, ding, ding, ding.
@@redfive5856 that's it 👍👍
My great grandfather used to be on a wheel tapping gang. I say gang as there were three of them. One tapped the train wheel with the tuning fork, the second guy listened to the sound the fork made & it was then listened to by the third guy so as to act as a check on the second guy. My grandfather used to be the third guy. This was during WW2 & was considered such an important job & so vital to the war effort, he didn't have to fight in the war.
Another job that was considered more essential to the war effort than serving in the military was operating auto salvage yards.
@@jeffputman3504
Why is that?
@vegastrina Scrap is so much more efficient than mining iron ore and smelting. Britan built almost 1,000 ships during the war, millions of guns and shells. The Merlin engine in a Spitfire weighs more than a Smart car, and over 150,000 were produced.
@@vegastrinaThere was a shortage of spare parts for cars and trucks. Recycling parts from scrapped vehicles helped keep the whole country from grinding to a halt.
Why couldn’t the same guy who tapped the wheel also listen to the tuning fork?
Great British humor , Will Hay , a great actor and entertainer . This scene pokes fun at the class system still prevalent today .
'Oh, Mr Porter.' Brilliant film
A friend of mine was mentioning this to his grandson at the Glasgow transport museum. A member of staff heard him & came across, handed him a tapping hammer & asked if he wanted to see if he could hear the bad wheel on the exhibit.
Cool!
And could he tell which wheel was bad?
@@censusgary yep.... tink, tink, tonk
Automotive engine crankshafts are also tapped to listen for the ring.
Long-hail truckers will pound on the rubber tires...if the hammer doesn't rebound, the tire is deflated or defective.
Because it won't necessarily go flat if it's a reinforced sidewall and/or it's a dually / multiple axles, so the other good tyres stop the weight of the truck from pushing it to the ground? But it'll still have a lot less spring to it when pressed on from the side?
(I know my somewhat-reinforced car tyres start going soft before they show more visible flatness... kicking the tyres for a quick check does actually have at least a little value)
I carry out a similar testing procedure with my boot
Yep,I have a tire thumper/head knocker....
I’ve done this as a driver’s mate ! Now fluorescent wheel nuts and computer monitors for tyre pressure but NO common sense 😂
@@pirobot668beta Is that why prospective car buyers kick the tires?
When train wheels had brass bearings in the box instead of roller bearings we'd tap the brass to hear the sound. It didn't exactly ring, but you could definitely tell a good one from one that was anout to fail. A " hot box" was nothing to sneeze at. Smoke and flames comming out meant the end of that axel was burning off.
Ah, the early days of "Friction Welding."
That’s what they mean when they say it’s “sound”. You can hear it. A clay flower pot rings until it’s cracked.
The ring of a pot of unknown provenance can also tell you whether it is earthenware or stoneware, which tells you whether it will withstand the shock of being used in an oven.
A metallurgist, or just anyone familiar with metals, can tell if a piece of cast metal has cracks just by the sound it makes when hit with a hammer. When a bell is cracked it no longer chimes but has a dull, short bing instead, the same for any piece of metal that should be solid all the way through. For anyone thinking "Shouldn't they test the wheels before they go on the train?", they do, but then they also test them periodically after that because wheels can crack from being used.
The same for stone. A mason or sculptor ‘sounds’ the stone by hitting it with a hammer, if it rings, you know the stone is ‘true’. ( without internal crack or fissure. ). The origin of the terms ‘Ring of truth’. Or ‘sound investment’.
I was on a train coming back from Penzance. It must’ve been at a station in Devon of which I cannot remember exactly looking out of the window at night time and hearing the wheel tapper going along the train opposite that was at the station. It was sometime in the 70s a memory that’s being kept with me for 50 years never forgotten
Penzance???
I hear that is the lair of dangerous pirates.
You must have been very frightened.
Thank You for sharing your recollection! Memories, memories…how lovely.
@@craigkdillon Penzance is a sleepy little town in the south of England and the last place anyone would expect to find pirates, Gilbert and Sullivan wrote comedic theatre plays and the idea of pirates invading a small town within a stone's throw of some of Britain's major naval ports during the golden age of piracy seemed funny to them. It worked and the Pirates of Penzance became a hit with audiences, it was the first show they debuted somewhere other than the UK letting American audiences see it first, and it became quite a hit on Broadway, introducing Americans to the incredible talent of Gilbert and Sullivan.
So they can join the Wheeltappers and Shunters Club for a pie and a pint Friday night to be entertained by up coming comedians 😂
@@colintuffs568 yes , but you have to ask the members of the committ ..tee first
Entertainment at its finest - ah the good ol' days
His explanation of why he taps the wheels sounds like the new england weather stick.
If snow falls off the wheel, he knows it is snowing. If water falls off the wheel it is raining. If he doesn't hear anything, the train has been stolen.
Will Hay was an inimitable talent
Oh, Mr Porter
Much more so than those more mitable, poor souls.
@@MrDavidknigge perhaps the word you're looking for is "imitable" ? No such word as mitable. Imitable - can be imitated.
inimitable - incapable of imitation or unique [the sense I meant it]
mitable - not a valid English word,
There's always the online dictionaries
@daffyduk77 I was trying to be funny.
@@MrDavidknigge Oh sorry, it missed my funny nerve
This idea eventually evolved into ultrasonic testing of metal. If it doesn't sound right, there is a fissure in the piece.
Censored
That's for sure.
Same thing when buying ceramics or glass, but don't use a hammer. Ping it with your finger, if it rings it's OK, if it clicks, it's cracked.
I do the same thing with airplane propellers. Only I tap them with my knuckles.
My first real job was in Metrology (measurements). They had a sign that, as best as I remember, said "This guy rejected 200 train wheels until it was discovered the testing hammer was defective. Test equipment needs to be tested."
Reminds me of a joke my dad told me (it's such a dad joke), it's a visual joke but I'll describe the physical parts...
A man goes to the doctor and says "Doctor it really hurts when I do this.." - *press a finger in to your knee*
"And this.." - *press the same finger in to your abdomen*
"And even this.." - *press the finger in to your cheek*
"Have you ever seen anything like this?"
The doctor looks the man in the eye and says "Yes, you've got a broken bone in your finger."
That's a good skill to have... knowing how to respond in a snappy but polite and friendly way to clueless superiors who aren't really interested in your answer but must be seen to say something. Gets it over with, everyone has a chuckle, job done.
Believe it or not, when you are at the grocery and want to pick a good cantaloupe, thump it while holding it next to your ear. You have to rotate it several times, thumping along the way, but if the thumps have a slight resonance to them, the cantaloupe is firm and will be good. Sound is a good way to test a lot of things.
@@kegginstructure But maybe not too much resonance, as that means it's underripe?
Why is the one dude the spitting image of Sir Topham Hatt? 0:50
Related
YES EXACTLY! 😂
For the same reason truckers tap brake drums.
And now we have disc brakes on the tractor drives so no more tapping those drums 😢
But we still have the trailer brakes!😂😂
the only thing I wanted from dad's estate was his brass brake hammer!!! What a sledge. A lot of kids time spent banging that thing on cast iron.
Hence the 1970s TV show. The Wheeltappers and Sunters Social Club!
Before the Tories sold of British Rail we had a national railway system that worked. Years back I was in London and had missed the last train home. The staff said I could ride in a car of a freight train to get me home before normal services in the morning. So I took it. Can anyone imagine that happening today with all the health and safety nonsense and train operating company 'fiefdoms'? I mention this journey because on the journey the train stopped and the engineer got out and started hitting the wheels! It was explained that he suspected a wheel was damaged!
Will Hay, comedian - the guy tapping the wheels - was quite an astronomer!
I wonder if wheel tapping is still carried out since privatisation? Or was that something that got "Risk Assessed" out of existence, on the grounds that if a wheel is cracked, it will be discovered when it falls off.
@@realityhurtstoomuch8830 Back in the day after a missed last train out of London I'd also done the same. Back then we were more personally responsible and more situationally aware and could handle ourselves.
So now you know why wheeltappers tapped wheels! Tapping wheels is a skill learnt by wheeltappers over time. When the wheel is tapped, the wheeltapper listens for a change of note...as the wheeltapper taps, a sudden dip in tone tells the wheeltapper, ( who has just tapped the wheel), that there is a possible crack in the tapped wheel...in which case the affected, tapped wheel which the wheeltapper has just tapped, has to be changed...after it too has been tapped of course!
Exactly right
You have an untapped talent for describing the event.
There was a spoof Wheel Tappers and Shunters Club on TV in the 70s fronted by Bernard Manning
These days they also have arrays of microphones alongside the tracks to listen for suspect wheel bearings and flat spots etc.
The wagons have RFID tags so they can ID the correct wagon.
@@SafariNZ Those things are called defect detectors.
Can somebody please tell me what movie this is from? Americans didn't get many of these classic British comedies, but I've gotten hold of some of the Ealing Studio films and they're wonderful. Thanks in advance.
Oh, Mr Porter.
@@tonysantiago255 yes, it’s is “ oh Mr Porter”. Starting Will Hay, Moore Marriott and Grahame Moffat
@ glennedwards1449 - I seen some 'Will Hay Collection' listings so I'll check into them. Thanks again.
@keytesofessex - Thanks for the info. I'll check out his movies.
@@tonysantiago255
Interesting short bio on IMDb.
End connectors all day long. Ping, ping, ping, dunk. Red paint for replacement.
If you get stopped by the ministry of transport they tap the wheel nuts on commercial vehicles
Here in the states - we call them DOT or transport police.
In that scene when the water came out, it was with more force than they expected, one of the female actors was washed onto the tracks and broke her leg.
oh no!
Today he would work for Boeing!
😂😂😂😂😂
Strange, I wondered the same last night when seeing it done in Anna Karenina.
A cracked bell will have a dull tone rather than a long chime because a piece of cast metal with cracks, even hard to see cracks, can't ring all the way through. So tappers can use their ears to tell if something has been cast with defects or if something such as a train wheel has cracked during it's use. The irony in this clip is that although it looks as though the mayor is getting annoyed with the tapper it would most likely be the other way around, with the tapper telling anyone nearby to shut up so he could listen to the ring coming from the wheel, but obviously the movie is playing it for laughs.
Google knows what you watched, therefore TH-cam answered the question for you. EVEN THOUGH YOU ONLY THOUGHT IT! It happens to me all the time.
@@krashd
I’m still not sure, given how it was played, if he as the character actually knew.
Wagon technicians do exactly the same thing during a brake test. The sound of the wheel differs whether the brakes are engaged or not.
That's kind of like having an open or closed hi-hat on a drum set I expect...?
I was wondering why they were standing under the water boom
I can hear a crack in spent ammo brass before i reload it. Put 3 or 4 in your hand and shake around. The cracked one has a higher pitched ‘ding’ sound to it.
So this is what Sir Topham Hatt did before running his own railway. 😂
… and playing in the background, 🎶"Ooh Doctor Beeching!"🎵
😌
Adapted from” Oh Mr Porter” Sadly remember Mr Breeching’s times well.
One example of NDI
NonDestructive…Inspection? NDT, - Testing I had heard of.
They tap nuts/bolts in Radio and wind turbine towers too 😊
You can tell a lot more from the sound things emit than most people realize.
This also works with ceramics and glassware.
I've see guys at the antiques market tapping "silver" coins, each metal will ring with a certain tone that a different alloy just won't match.
Every so often the automatic equipment doesn't detect a fractured wheel in time, and then there's bad news. At least engines don't have side and main rods, to that danger is eliminated.
There you go.
I always thought they were looking for loose tyres not cracked wheels.
Well that answers that question.
There's logic in them words!!
Never saw a Tapper check Loco Wheels always Carriage Wheels.
0:50 those are huge! 00
actually, I think it's for the sound, if the wheel has a creak or something's wrong with it, it makes a different sound
This dialogue could've been between Chico Marx and a straight man.
Not much different than when we use to tap stay rods on boilers. If it “rang” it was sound, if it “thudded” it was not.
That was a long way to go….
That could have been more stupid, but I don't see how.
Old way to test Compressed gas cylinders .
Who are they and who uses trains anymore?
You do, daily.
Quite a lot of people use trains daily.
Most countries that put people’s needs before corporate profits.
I just wasted 1:42 of my life...
Why?