This weekend I was doing some wiring work on my layout and accidentally bumped the layout hard enough to cause the N Scael equivilant of a 10.0 on the Richter Scale. My Minitrix 2-10-0 was parked next to the edge of the layout and tumbeled nearly four feet to the floor.
Here's the result:
The crack pin for the valve gear sheered off. The only way I can think to fix it is to cut the rest of the pin off the crank, drill a small hole through it and use a Microtrains screw to reatach the crank. the only snag seems to be the length of the MT screw. Do you guys have any other ideas?
Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad in N Scale.
www.prr-nscale.blogspot.com
Chances are pretty good that Minitrix has this screw as a spare part.
Try your luck at http://www.eurorailhobbies.com/index.asp or with the nearest Minitrx dealer - a list can be found here:
http://www.trixtrains.com/trixdeal.html
You can shorten a screw if you have the tools. Especially one made of brass or other soft metal.
I have several steel plates of various thickness and I drilled and taped holes in them to accomodate different screw sizes.
I run the screw into the hole until the excess protrudes through the back of the plate and then snip it off with a pair of flush cutting nippers. A few strokes with a file finishes the job up nicely and leaves the threads in good shape so they will start in a hole easily.
This is a bit of work and I would only do it as a last resort if you cannot find the screw you need.
Be happy in your work.
Charlie
Any screw that you can get a nut for can be trimed by putting on the nut and then triming off the excess and removing the nut fixing any turning that has been malformed, you can do this with files also but it is very difficult for smaller threads.