I purchased my new jig over the weekend and I was playing with it
untill the wee hours of this morning!

I got he jig on saturday and rushed home to try it out. The only
model for which I had a "complete" kit for was an old K's german cab
forward! As I was unpacking it the wheels fell apart. The tires were
falling off and the plastic was so brittle the spokes were breaking
by the dozen!

On sunday I bought a new set of wheels for the cab forward so I can
make some progreaa on that. I also had a LNER W1 hush hush which I
made about 4 years ago. It never ran properly and i thought I would
take a look now I have the benifit of the master chassis jig. It had
a tendancy to hunt from side to side as it was going along the track
and generally looked very drunk! (much to the amusement of the
members of the MRC! I took the wheels off and dropped the axles out.
alligned the jig to the con rods and tried to put the chassis onto
the jig. 5 of the bearings were fine but the 5th was out by over a
mm. I dropped that bearing out and enlarged the hole in the chassis
with a grinding bit in the dremel, put the chassis on the jig with
the 5 bearings and then slid the 6th bearing along the shaft and
soldered it in place. In theory I now had 6 axles alligned and spaced
correctly with the conrods. I removed the middle axle from the jig
and put the centre axle and wheels back on the chassis and gave it an
hours running in on the jig to bed in the branchlines gearbox. After
that I popped on the other 4 wheels and the con rods and gave it a go
on the rolling road.

That was the first time in my life I have ever had a chassis running
properly. Then came the moment of truth. I popped it on my little
test track and it worked!! I have built about a dozen loco's but they
all ran like complete pigs. I just took a few minutes to sit and
watch it. For the first time I was proud of one of my loco creations.

Peter