The bearing blocks are made from ½” square aluminium and ½” aluminium angle 17mm long held together with 2mm S/S cap head screws.
Holes
are drilled and reamed to accommodate the 3/16” S/S rod which forms the guide rails.
Cross
drilled and tapped 3mm for the locking screws. NB I inserted a small length 2mm
of 2mm diameter plastic rod into the locking screw to protect the guide rails
from bruising.
The support blocks are drilled to accommodate the 3/16” S/S
rod and finally the holes are marked and drilled for the bearings using the
guide rod as a datum. My bearings are 8mm Diameter x 7mm wide salvage from dead
laptop hard disk drives. I think an MR83zz bearing would do the trick Outer Diameter
8mm Bore Diameter 3mm Width 3mm.
A quick check to see if my diminutive Pug will fit!
As
all was well I mounted the support blocks on to a 5mm thick piece of clear
acrylic 330x 65mm with 3mm countersunk screws.
I sprayed the underside of the clear acrylic base red to
make it more visible.
In order
to support longer locomotives a length of Peco rail was screwed to a piece of
black Nylon shimmed to bring the height to that of the rollers.
Electrical connections are fixed on the support blocks and
bonded to the Peco rail with 20 gauge tinned wire. The final picture shows my
Q1 sitting on the road.
