006 waggon axle spacing jig

 Up until now I've fitted inside bearing wheelsets on my 006 stock, using a short length of tube soldered to a small square of brass as a base, as seen here on my original flat waggon. This system works well enough, but you do need to be careful that both wheelsets are in line and the correct distance apart. An easier way would be to use a longer baseplate with two bearing tubes soldered to it, but making sure both bearings are parallel would be tricky without a jig. So I made one;

This made milled from 10 x 5mm aluminium strip, with a 5mm wide 1.5mm deep slot milled along its length. 5 x 1mm wide slots have milled crossways, these set the axle positions and are spaced for wheelbases of 4,5,6,7,8 and 10mm (I can't see the 4 and 5mm settings being used, but that's the way the jig turned out!). A suitably sized brass baseplate sits inside the jig lengthways, and the two 1mm dia. aluminium rods are used to position and hold the bearing tubes;

In the above photo the wheelbase is set at 8mm, in the photo below the wheelbase is 10mm;

Soldering is done with an RSU, the probe being used to hold the axle tube down as heat is applied.

Aluminium is used for both the jig and the two rods as it won't take solder, meaning that I won't be able to solder the job to the jig!

Here's a few baseplates ready for blackening;

And the finished items fitted with wheels;

Now I need to build some bodies.

Paul.