I'm all for making a LITTLE profit, if you can, on eBay, but this listing is a bit over the line. Go to: Kato Mikado Traction Wheel and Tire 11-604 - eBay (item 160612121149 end time Jul-04-11 14:54:01 PDT) and take a look. The INDIANA RAILWAY is always on the lookout for KATO traction tired axles for sale, but this listing is a little too rich for our blood. Maybe this is the solid gold issue, with platinum tires!! The original axles sold for about $9.00--10.00 each, but a $50.00 opening bid?!?! I DON'T THINK SO!! By the way, if you have any KATO Mikado Traction Tired Axles, you don't need, email me and let's work a deal.
Considering the last one that was listed open auction went for $47 + Shipping at the end, it's right in the ball park for what some are willing to pay.
The Kato Parts website shows that Mike Axle/Tire combinations are Sold Out, so I can understand why sellers probably can get this amount.
A very old law rules here........... It is the old law of supply and demand. If supply is low and demand is high, prices go way up. If supply is up and demand is low, prices go way down. Those of us who have been around the clock have learned and burned by this cruelty. I know I have no matter how much I try to avoid it. Another personal trait that seems to come into play, that when supply is low, demand increases, because we 1) want we can't have, or 2) what we can't get. There was this California firm which Kato bought out or took the design of these traction tires and way back when, the cost of the tire/axle/wheel was $7.50 plus shipping. Now for one reason or another, Kato stopped providing them, and I assume they are taking painstaking methods to reproduce them, because obviously the demand and money are there. Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman
There was one that sold on "Evil-bay" recently for the $62 neighborhood, + shipping. Human greed knows no bounds..............and I'm afraid it will come back to bite us in the a$$. The longer I live, the worse values get. I thought my Grandpa was dotty when he said the world was going kaput...........guess he was right!!
Kato is no longer producing the Mikado, the tooling is dormant. The tooling for the traction tire is part of the Mikado tooling as it shares the same axles, gears, bushings, and wheel centers as the non traction tire version of the driver. The only thing truely different is the rim with a groove and the tire itself. They are not going to set up the machines to run just the parts just for the traction tire. It's not cost effective. Heck Kato may have to charge $20-30 per set to offset the setup charges just to do a small run of the traction tired drivers where before the setup costs were shared with loco production. Kato didn't buy the design of the traction tire from somebody else. It was done in-house when they redesigned/improved the drivers for the second production run of the Mikados. The original design would not have been reliable enough to handle the groove in the rim as the rim was not directly connected to the hub. The newer/current style rim has the hub and rim molded/formed as one piece and is stronger.
Now I am not speaking from experence, because my Mike has a traction tire biggrin:, But I have heard that 2 coats of Bullfrog Snot actually preforms better on the mikes than the traction tire. I actually need to find somewhere here in Europe, (or order some durring the summer months) that carries 'snot, I got a few locomotives that I have been studying and I think I have figured out what axels would be best on some of them. I know that the traction tire on my Mike made a huge diffrence, it went from 10-12 MT boxcars to 20 with the traction tire. I have heard rumors that it can be 25-30 with 'snot. So what I wonder here, how much would someone who pays $50+ for the traction tire would kick themselfs, when they find out that a $25 jar of 'snot could preform better. lol
There is no way Bullfrog snot will perform as well as the factory traction tire. Lacking tire availablity it is better than nothing but the factory tire makes a huge improvement. I was among those that test Bullfrog snot and it does make an improvement but no where near what proper traction tire can do. The best I have tested with a Kato Mikado and a single traction tire is 44 cars on level. Add a second traction tire driver on the #2 axle and you can gain another 10 or so cars. My dual traction tired 2-10-2 based on the Mikado platform has pulled 88 cars before the motor started to heat up. It weighs a little more than stock. I know of a GHQ boilered Mikado with traction tires that comes close to 100 cars for maximum pull.
I could use a set myself, But am thinking Snot is probably the way I'll have to go. Would you believe that my new Bachman 4-6-0 OUT PULLS ALL of my other steamers??? sheesh ......Mike
Same guy This seller is the same guy who listed that auction: Jun 05, 201118:38:36 PDT --160597466671-- $62.05 winning bid + $2.50 shipping The winning bidder is a well known n scaler who can afford to pay 'generous' prices for items he wants.
Same here. I never installed mine because I found that my Mikado could pull a reasonable length of cars without any help. That said, I'll keep it just in case.....
Well, Bless him if he is able to do that............but one wonders if it might not be a case of " more money than sense " ??
Kato Parts department emailed me about a month ago and stated that they would be re-running this part due to high demand. I don't know when they are supposed to arrive, but the Kato parts department is very friendly. Email them if you want to know.
No way? Check YouTube search term BULLFROG SNOT for many vids of long trains. My videos have been previously accused of being (gasp!) deceptive – not by you of course – such that I’ve added disclaimers. N-trak layouts have long flat Bonneville straights, none of that here. These quickie videos require the train to bend around tight curves in a small room, and crest a small rise. My un-SNOtted locos will not match what is shown. You were one of about 100 BULLFROG SNOT 'betas' back in '08, several selected due to their ubiquitousness on the boards. (We learned that unprotected BULLFROG SNOT sent in winter to northern climes may freeze, for example) To reach a full and fair spectrum, samples were specifically sent to those who could be inclined to a negative bias due to a competing business interest (a custom service installing rubber tires perhaps?). Samples were also sent to all publications – which have printed reviews contrary to yours – numerous clubs, and were freely distributed to modular displayers at shows. Our site has the customer comments, some received directly, others gleaned in context from the internet. Testing continues, on a reduced schedule. I read often, reply very rarely, and don’t initiate threads. Don’t want to become a ‘pushy infomercial for miracle goop’. A few, who happen to be perpetual pontificating posters, will professorially pronounce preferences any time the topic of traction comes up. And that, I say, is a good thing, these are forums after all. The rest of the community has made their own call, and they say: YES, WAY! Bill the BULLFROG
Bullfrog Snot for me. I hate monkeying with traction tires. To me they're like plastic wheelsets, which I remove at the first sign of trouble and replace with metal wheels. If I get any grief from a traction tire I go the Bullfrog Snot route. Don't look now, but that traction tire set is north of $61. Even in, say, some parallel universe without Bullfrog Snot, I wouldn't be likely to pay $50 for one of these. I think It'd be trying to fashion something out of thing wall tubing from the hardware store, or orthodontic rubber bands, or SOMETHING.
I have to say that the Bullfrog Snot is STILL working great on my lighter DIESELS. I havent replaced it yet !!! I give it 5+ stars. JMO...thnxs Bill *I will let ya know on the steamers as soon as mine throws a tire...lol .
