I needed some leaf spring trucks for a caboose I’m working on. I happened to be looking around the Ozark site (http://www.ozarkminiatures.com) and saw that they had a kit to build a pair. They don’t give a lot of information: “1:20.3 D&RG trucks (1082) Fully sprung d&rg leaf spring truck. Leaf springs are hinged and move. Hidden spring carries load, comes with sierra valley wheels. Kit” And a nice picture:
They sounded good, so I decided to take a chance. The parts need a bit of cleaning up with a file, but nothing major. The cross members do NOT come drilled; this is probably a good thing as it allows you to drill the appropriate size hole.
Not shown in that picture are the 4 axles of Sierra Valley Wheels that come with the kit. They are number 3 and scale to 24" in 1:20. Looking at the contents of the kit, 2 things came to mind: 1) Those are slide journal covers, not the drop lid journals that are shown in the picture. 2) There are NO instructions In looking through my documentation, those are the appropriate journal covers for the D&RG caboose I am modeling, so that was actually a good thing. I puzzled over the pieces for a little bit and then begin assembling them. There are two pieces to each leaf spring. They are held together with a small brass wire that is supplied with the kit. Once assembled, both pieces have to be bent to allow them to fit in the side frames. Here you can see the assembled leaf spring. It will sit on the cross piece as well as on a nub on the side frame. The coil spring goes behind it to hold everything in place. I drilled the cross piece to allow for the truck to be mounted.
I glued the journal covers in place using CA. It was a bit of a hassle putting the wheels in place, but once in and oiled they roll OK.
