Then I decided to have another go, this time knowing what I wanted to achieve. I completely took it apart and started from the ground up. It’s taken me a few months (since October/November 2011) and managed to take pics of the process.
So, the first thing I made was the tracks and wheels, These are constructed using 6mm (track segments) and 12mm (wheels) MDF.
The track segments are 45mm long and 25mm wide, I had to cut out each one individually using a bandsaw. There are 32 segments per track, 64 in all.
2 holes were drilled in each segment (thats 128 holes!) to allow for the small nut to pass through, allowing it to be fixed via a small chain.
The wheels were merely cut using a hole saw, I cut 2 segments of 12mm MDF and stuck them together to give me a thicker wheel.
I used aluminium tubing as inserts for the wheels, for the shaft to pass through. As over time the shaft would damage the hole in the MDF and cause play.
The shafts are 6mm steel tubing which I thread at each end for a nut, to hold the wheel in place.
