I deal with iron foundries all the time. Currently at IMPulse we are dealing with 3 different iron foundries. Has a pattern been made for this shoe? Also the photo does not show the other side of the casting. I suspect that there is a cored slot for the break shoe key. Core boxes can really run up the cost of a pattern. For a casting of this size and the quantity of castings that you need you may want to look for a foundry that does squeezer work. This is more of a manual moulding process. Not all foundries will do squeezer work these days. 2 of the 3 foundries that we deal with have squeezer lines. Are break shoes cast from standard gray iron or is there something special about the iron alloy?
Best regards,
Randy Anderson
Kenansville NC
Has anyone contacted RFPC (Manufacturer of Cobra shoes) and inquired about a possible available substitute? They produce a low friction (Yellow) shoe that is a direct replacement for cast iron shoes. We have a bunch at work, in addition to the regular composition (Black) and tread conditioning (Red) shoes.
Jeron G.
PRS Car Dept.
I cannot answer your question and comment directly. But from my involvement so far with getting brake shoes for several of our trolleys, there are issues. Each car may be from a different manufacturer and era, they did not use a standard shoe design, such as the AAR B1 shoe. As such, each shoe was mated to a proprietary brake head and mounting, may have been designed with needed wrap around flanges on the shoe, may have been tailored for tram wheels, compromise wheels, and specialty non AAR flange designs. So, my short answer is no we have not contacted your supplier, but might be delighted if they could furnish shoes that would work in these individual applications, saving us lots of bucks and pattern costs in the thousands of dollars. So far I have not seen Cobra composition shoes with wrap around flange designs or the shapes to drop into anything but standard AAR designations, widths, etc.
Bob Kutella