Hi,
Does anyone know where one could purchase a decent loco chassis alignment jig for 009 (presumably an N gauge one?). Most of the jigs I can find are for TT upwards and yet in 009 even a very slight misalignment of the frames can have serious repercussions later.
Regards Colin
Colin,
I'm not sure that you can. There has been at least one (possibly two?) gizmos advertised in MRJ fairly recently which are supposed to do this sort of job, but I don't think either will go down to 9mm gauge. The 2mm Association sells a pair of loco frame jigs - you need to join to buy their products, but if you're seriously thinking of producing your own chassis in 009 they'll definitely have some useful stuff.
See http://www.2mm.org.uk/
Hope this helps,
Chris
The guy from the 2mm association reckons it wouldn't work as the frames have to be closer together to allow for the relatively fat N wheel treads. shame.
anyone got any ideas?
Colin
They just seem to be brass bar faced off and drilled to axle size. I could be really unhelpful and suggest that you get a friendly lathe owner to turn down the middle bits, bit if you had access to said person he could have made you one for N/009 anyway.
If you're seriously considering chassis building you'd be better off owning a lathe anyway - you can pick up a Peatol (http://www.peatol.com/) for about the price of a Roco 399 class 0-8-2. Although they're bit ugly they are apparently - on the word of a prominent 2mm modeller - very sturdy and accurate.
Chris