Wheel Painting Jig

[vcltel]

Like most of us who weather their rolling stock (possibly to its detriment in my case!) I have found painting the wheels individually to be a slow and boring process.  I had seen reference to suitable jigs for doing the job available in the USA but decided to make one myself.  A visit to my metal store yielded some  1.5 mm aluminium alloy sheet  which I drilled and then bolted together with 6BA bolts using thick walled brass tubing for spacers.  It worked but assembling the lash up was akin to juggling and involved a lot of swearing.  So I talked to my brother who was an engineer and he made a superior prototype from ali plate 6BA bolts and blocks of rosewood for spacers.  His clever trick was to use a "bodger's special"  sheet metal taper reamer to finish the holes.  This enables you to put the wheel set into the base then bolt on the top plate with no problem.   It works well, though there is some slight paint leakage on the rims of certain wheels due I suspect to the varying angles of the wheel rims.  He's now working on a similar one to hold 36" wheels for me. 

[griffgriff]

I know of a US product which is merely a plastic moulding that holds the wheels in much the same way as your innovation. However the wheel diameter is critical so it's of no use to me, what a shame