( A first here at MD, as we blog while brewing. I'm doing an all grain brew which really needs to be babied for an hour or so).
Back to the wheel/axle/bearing discussion today. In the last week or so on a variety of forums there have been a few ideas tossed around. In no particular order here they are.
1) Stick with the status quo. Well, actually this hasn't been proposed but is certainly the cheapest and easiest option. The main drawback is that with out some cunning jiggery-pokery behind the scenes the various outside bits will be just too wide. Not a big problem (well less of a problem) for the modern image guys, but the rest of us could have problems.
2) Wheels with shorter axles. On the face of it quite the obvious solution. However the British wheel suppliers won't deal in anything less than 1000 axles ( that's a scary thing to see in an e-mail). Not quite what we want just for a test.
3) Shortened axles. A novel suggestion to cut the axle in 1/2, remove a couple of mm and rejoin with a piece of brass tube. Maybe not as daft as it sounds
4)Inside/outside bearings. I had a crack at this on my aborted Ja tender, and the inside bearings worked fine. They didn't quite run as well as the pinpoint variety. It would solve the whole wheel/solebar relationship by ignoring it completely. The other option here is to have plain flat-ended axles running in tube bearings. This was used by the 9mm crowd 20 odd years ago, as heavy wagons in normal pinpoints would splay the solebars. Again I think it would not quite run as well as pinpoints, and the engineering involved might be a bit harder (only my opinion).
What does everyone else think. An opnion from the manufacturer on what he would like to see could prove useful (must think of the market and all). looking at the Trackgang models I have, they could stand a 12.5mm axle I think
One option not commented on is the subject of a phone call received last night by 2 gentlemen stuck in traffic on the way to a BBQ on the Kapiti coast. Its content's suggest either some warmups and qualifiers had been indulged in, or the carbon monoxide levers in the car need investigating...
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3 comments:
Gday,
What did the UK manufacturer want for 1000 axles ? Email me at bscaro at the yahoo thingy if you don't want to divulge on a blog.
I wonder if N scalers in the UK have come up against this and would like to participate in an order too? Strikes me the the issue of overlong axles must have come up at some time in the past.
Ben
I didn't ask how much it was, was just gobsmacked by the number!
N scalers in the UK live with te problem as thats what the comercial stuff is made to, and finescalers go to the 2mm association who make the correct dimensioned stuff.
From comments on the Yahoo 'ngauge' British forum, I think it may eventually be that Farish move towards using 6.5mm wheels with 14mm axles for wagons. When they do that, they are likely to release them as parts.
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