Two Wheels, One Axle

Having messed up the first attempt at axle making I spent some actual time thinking through the process a bit and came up with a plan. This essentially involved keeping a long piece of 1/8" axle steel nice and straight on the lathe using a fixed steady (a recent purcahse and this is the first time I've tried it) and then lightly makring the sections for an axle on the rod using the cutting tool. I could then cut the axle from the rod and face and turn with just the end protruding from the collet chuck. Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos while marking up the axles, but here you can see the end result (after I roughly cut the two sections from the rod).

So if you look at those you can see I roughly cut them from the rod, so from each end I need to face off at the first line, and then turn down the rod between the first and second line. This will give me a stepped axle which should enforce the correct back-to-back measurement; although each end needs turning down differently to match the insulated and uninsulated wheels.

So far I've only managed to do one axle but......

And just to prove that they both fit on track and roll

And you have no idea just how happy I am with that!