Paul Willis
Morning Frank,
I can then undertake final assembly at which point the driving wheels will be permanently adhered to their axles. At the moment I am investigating what adhesive to use. Up until now I have always used Loctite 601 but I have recently been advised that Loctite doesn’t adhere particularly well to plastic. We still need to be able to remove the wheels from their axles in the event the chassis needs a major service so I’m going to have to experiment with various adhesives to ensure I find the most appropriate type for this and future chassis builds.
It’s clearly going to be late for this build, but one of the great advantages of the CSB method of chassis building is that you can just drop the driving wheels out without removing them from the axles or disturbing the quartering.
By removing the CSB wires that hold the axle bearings in their guides, the whole lot can just drop downwards. You may have a keeper plate under there as well, holding brake gear and/or pickups, and that can be removed as well.
The method gives a lot of flexibility for maintenance and adjustment, as well as ease of building.
As for glues, I’ve used Loctite 601 (or rather 603, which I understand has replaced it) for many years with plastic centred wheels, and no specific problems have been found. It is widely held as the best adhesive for this role. Yes, it can shift under excessive torque, but I haven’t heard of a modelling adhesive that won’t eventually. It works for me. The belt and braces solution is drilling and pinning the axle of course. However that has it’s own challenges, not least if disassembly is needed in the future.
All the best,
Paul