I have recently completed a 5" gauge Sweet Pea 0-4-2 chassis and the total amount of side to side movement (slop) in an axle is 80 thou. I am unable to get any definitive advice on whether this 80 thou will be OK.

My feeling is that this might be too much and I have double checked all the drawings and the frames are 11 thou less than they should be. Wheel back to back width is per drawing and 5" Gauge Association specs.

A member of a Sweet Pea forum said 2 thou slop, a respected member of my club said 1/16" which is about 62 thou and another said that his Sweet Pea is 28 thou. I have done a lot of on-line research and there was an old posting on here which said that 1/16" is OK on a 0-6-0 5" Simplex and that too tight a clearance will cause problems on tight curves.

There is a book called "So you want to build your own live steam locomotive" by an American fellow where the calculations are given. The book is quite expensive to buy and I just missed one in EBay last week.

I would appreciate any ideas or suggestions as I don't wish to jeopardise a year's work. Many thanks. Nick