# brio train set parts...



## Pabs (Dec 10, 2008)

first of all.,, happy new year everyone!

friend of mine gave me a box of wooden train tracks.. (some from BRIO and others form similar companies)..

anyway, some of the tracks had missing ends on them
look at the pic here 









what it's missing is the little balls (with stick ) on the left hand side.

I looked all over the net and can't seem to find a source for them..

anyone have a good source for places that would sell these kinds of wooden parts?

thanks

Pabs


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## RichardB (Nov 5, 2008)

Measure it, that would help a lot.

Do you see anything useful on this page? Michael's the craft place might have them too, and they're in every big box mall.


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## saddlesore (Oct 17, 2007)

When my son was younger and collected "Thomas", the track, which is compatible with Brio, used just the "plan" view profile of the little ball and shaft. I think I would cut them out with the scroll saw in that shape, round the shaft and insert into a drilled hole with a little glue.


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## toyguy (Nov 23, 2007)

I believe you can find most any shape at Stockade. 
Hope this is of some help to you.


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## Cantputjamontoast (Jan 1, 2009)

I have never tried this but I read in FWW that if you but wood squares in a bottomless box on top of a sanding belt and run it, pretty soon you'll get round spheres. I wish I knew the issue #
YAMMV


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## jcecil (May 28, 2008)

Rockler sells the router bit to make all the joints for them though quite pricey. I have two sets for my son and one has a "ball" on the end and the other is round with flat top and bottom and they both work together. without having to make an actual ball it would be much easier to do with a bandsaw or scrollsaw so I would think no need to go buying the router bit for just a couple ends.


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## Pabs (Dec 10, 2008)

forgot about craft stores
went to my local Michael's….found some 1/2 round balls…wee bit too big… I think 3/8 would do just fine… I'll keep looking…


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## NY_Rocking_Chairs (Jul 20, 2008)

Here ya go. All the round balls you could ever want.


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## Pabs (Dec 10, 2008)

awesome find….but unfortunately I live in Canada and they only ship to the states


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## Bob10 (Jan 18, 2009)

Not to steer this off course but does anyone know where you can buy the wheels that work on brio track? I have plenty of little pieces of Maple I would like to use to make train cars for my kids


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## NY_Rocking_Chairs (Jul 20, 2008)

Couple of suggestions for the wheels.

Get some dowel, probably be about 5/8" or 3/4" and drill a hole in the center, then cut slices off the dowel. Sand to shape

Also you could try some of the toy kit suppliers. I won't post any names here but if you pm me I can provide a couple places. Or search for toys and see what comes up. There are pre-made train wheels that would be really cool and would probably fit the track.

Good luck.


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## anobium (Dec 25, 2011)

I tried to get wheels and magnets for own trains but if you buy original spare parts you end up paying more for that than a entire train cost. My idea is to make the groove on the router table and use a mitre saw to cut the wheel of the dowel. Which wood is most likely to take that procedure without getting ripped into pieces?


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## boblucas (Feb 7, 2014)

I found the following natural wood parts that work perfectly to repair the ball end of Brio track:

3/16" X 12" Dowel Rod - craftamerica.com (16 rods for $1.49 plus shipping)
11 mm Beads - etsy.com (25 for $2.00 plus shipping from the Ukraine)

The holes in the beads need to be drilled out to 3/16" diameter. This is easy since the balls already have a pilot hole for your drill bit.

Most of my old track had the ball end missing so all I had to do was clean out the existing hole with a 3/16" bit. Ones that had broken ends were a bit harder. I broke them as close as I could to the track and sanded the end flat, center punched the remains of the rod, and drilled it out.

Instead of trying to make parts to measure not knowing if all the holes in the track were the same depth, the following technique worked well.,

Clean out the existing hole with your drill bit (or recreate the hole if you had to remove a broken end).
Slip a bead onto the dowel rod.
Put glue on the dowel rod and insert it into the track.
Using another piece of track as your guide, slide the ball to where it fits the female end.
Cut off the excess rod.
Remove the ball and then glue it back on flush with the end of the stub you've created.

There are a lot of inexpensive replacements for Brio track nowadays, but it was lots of fun to fix the track, my son played with as a kid, for his son.


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