It has been said that deadlines spark creativity. I don’t think this project is especially creative, but the looming deadline of summer Arizona heat closing my garage shop has me looking at projects and working on a lot of different stuff. With the goal of getting train projects in particular done in relation to stuff that has to be done on the big workbench, setting them up for more work inside later in the summer.

In this case, I have had, since 2010, an International HO (but overscale) 2-6-2, described further here. It had been modified for OO by Ed Morlok (or for him); I got it off eBay. It is of a Milwaukee prototype, but a perfect little branch or short line engine for me.

What had me really stalled was the issue of drivers. The original drivers were unusable. After years of puzzling, I came around to modifying a partial set of Nason 2-8-0 drivers (only 3 of 4 were usable) as my best option.

Quartering

A big thing was the wheels were loose and I had to quarter them on suitable axles. This was a long term worry for me. I first bought the cheaper NWSL jig, but it was not going to work, so I got the bigger one with an extra axle holder big enough to use on these drivers.

And there it all sat for years. As have several other projects.

Looking around in the shop though, this time, I was like “I just need to do this.” I tried to find a different gearbox, but could not locate any options, so I adjusted the original as carefully as I could before mounting the drivers.

The process in short is you mount one side fully, set them up in the jig with crank pins, and get the second side perfectly lined up and partially mounted. Then you have to drive the wheel home, I used my bench vice with pieces of wood to protect the wheels.

I did have to knurl three of the axle ends so that they would hold the wheels firm. I used a couple different needle nose pliers and my bench vise to get a deep enough pattern in the surface so the drivers would not wobble. This was possible because the vintage axles I used were clearly a mild steel and the tools are a harder steel. I have tried this trick with other situations, and it didn’t work — I gather because the axles were tool steel.

This was like a lot of projects go for me, I spent more time pondering and setting it up than it actually took to do it.

I’ve got drawings of how to put the valve gear back together. It really should not take that long. I’m hoping I can get it to run well, because it is visually a sweet engine. A preview of what it should be looking like in a month or two is below.