[Custom] Custom Axles, My Method and Alternatives

Wheel swaps. Who doesn't love them?

Swapping wheels is the number one gateway drug into customizing Hot Wheels. But what do you do when the wheel base of the subject is different from the donor car?

There are countless ways to do custom axles, and I trialed and errored many of them before finding one that works the best for me.

First of all, let's talk about the materials. Pretty much every method, except one, as far as I know, uses a .032 (.81mm) brass rod, which you can buy at any hobby store for less than 2 dollars.

Now that we got that settled, let's move on to some different methods.

The most basic method, and the one I tried first is to simply cut the brass to size, clamp it between pliers, and hammer the end until it becomes flat, locking the wheels in just like on the original axles. Sounds simple enough, right?

For some reason this never worked for me. The ends never become flat, the rod became bent, and it was always a mess. I even thought I was using the wrong kind of hammer and bought a ball peen hammer, but the results were the same.

After trying several more methods, the one I settled on turned out to be fairly simple. It does involve more steps that the first method, but overall it is very easy and always delivers good results.

Tools: the afore mentioned brass rods, jewelry krimping beads (#1 size, I found them at Michaels), super glue.

Basically, you cut the rods to size, put a tiny bead of glue on the end, and push it into the krimping bead. It is a tight squeeze, but a few gentle taps will do the trick. Let it dry, put your wheels on your axle, and glue a bead on the other end of the axle.

The beads are just big enough to keep your wheels securely on, and not to long that they stick out of the wheel hub. You should end up with something like this.

Not too bad, right?

That is how I do my custom axles. Carnage717 told me the first method I mentioned works well for him, so every one has different preferences.

What methods do you use? Let me know in the comments!