Counting my stock of 4mm carriage trucks this morning, I realized I was going to come up 24 trucks short of completing the 36 carriages I will need on my current build of the Confederacy. Not thrilled about the prospect of placing an order for one pack of trucks and paying the shipping cost for such a small order, I decided to take a shot at creating them from a 3/16" dowel. Came up with something some of you may be interested in.
Pic #1....Using a sharp blade to carefully mark the dowel for turning.
http://shipmodeling.net/photopost/data/1352/thumbs/carriage_trucks2.JPG (http://shipmodeling.net/photopost/data/1352/carriage_trucks2.JPG)
Pic #2....Marked dowel inserted into a variable speed drill and spinning a carbide cutting wheel at a medium speed in my Dremel Tool, we are ready to make a little sawdust.
http://shipmodeling.net/photopost/data/1352/thumbs/carriage_trucks3.JPG (http://shipmodeling.net/photopost/data/1352/carriage_trucks3.JPG)
Pic#3....Spinning the dowel in my drill keeps everything nice and round while I use the spinning wheel as a cutting tool to remove material according to my markings.
http://shipmodeling.net/photopost/data/1352/thumbs/carriage_trucks4.JPG (http://shipmodeling.net/photopost/data/1352/carriage_trucks4.JPG)
Pic#4....The finished one-piece axel with trucks.
http://shipmodeling.net/photopost/data/1352/thumbs/carriage_trucks5.JPG (http://shipmodeling.net/photopost/data/1352/carriage_trucks5.JPG)


Surprisingly, the process hardly takes any more time than it normally takes for me to mark and trim and shape an axel and then glue two trucks to it.

Might not be purchasing any more gun carriage trucks. :=)

Very nice technique and well executed. You make it seem so easy.

Awesome. This is going to sound stupid but, do you have the carbide cutter on the dremel tool spinning along with the drill while shaping?

Yes indeed Stephen. Both tools are spinning. I do it as a two handed operation. The drill is held against the table surface in an upside down position and using a fairly low rpm rate. The Dremel tool is spinning at a "medium" rpm rate. Use very slight touches with the cutting wheel.

A small square file and a bit of fine sandpaper is used (while spinning the part) to dress everything up in the end before cutting the finished part from the dowel. I also use the file to square up the axel between the trucks.

Oh...okay. So the axels and wheels are all one piece (I see that you did specify that earlier, oops). That is really cool. I actually have all of those tools and two of my cheapo walnut ply wheels cracked/ crumbled when getting them out of the laser cut skeleton so I need a few trucks. I was amazed at how difficult it is to slice off the end of a dowel to make a single wheel without the part splitting. Im not even going to get into my frustrations on making a symetrical circle so small from a sheet. I will definetly try your way. Congrats.

Stephen.... Your experience with trying to drill out the end of a dowel and then slice a truck off the end without it crumbling is exactly what I ran into, which, in frustration, led me to this technique. Enjoy.

Thanks again. I'll try and post a success pic to this thread when I get it right.

I used this technique last night on some carriages I am making. I had already made the trucks by slicing off pieces of a dowel, then drilling the hole for the axle - I started with a very small drill bit and worked up very slowly to the right size, using many bits in between. I had been turning the axles from square stock in a small lathe, but I was using a file to round off the ends for the trucks to go on. I just couldn't get a nice clean edge with the file. The Dremel cutting wheel worked great and produced some nice axles. Thanks for the tip.

Way to go Tom. Glad to hear it worked well for someone else.