The trolley pole Part 2

I decided to make the trolley wheels fixed as, without a metal lathe, I figured it would be impossible to drill the centre hole accurately enough.

Without a lathe, my two most useful tools are the drill press and my Dremel. It's quite amazing what can be done with these two.

Each wheel was marked out on the brass stock then with the drill press spinning the cutting was done using the dremel. I had a couple of failures when I wasn't able to keep my hand steady enough.

Cutting these wheels meant working at eye level so wearing safety goggles was a must. These fine cut off wheels are very fragile and will shatter without warning.

With the wheels out of the way it was on to cutting the rest of the pieces for my first pole. The photo shows all the pieces that go into one trolley pole.

The anchor points for the springs are 0.5mm brass. The vertical bearing for the trolley base and the pole itself are from 1mm rod. 1mm ID brass tube was used for the harp and the bottom sleeve for the pole and the trolley base was cut and shaped from square stock using the dremel. There should be sufficient spring for one and a half poles or more likely one pole and a disaster.

Now to put it all together.