Classic & Vintage - skinny front axle, narrow front fork

I'm trying to build up a new wheel for my old, Sears bike. I thought it'd be fairly straight-forward. Silly me.

The axle (solid) is about 8mm diameter. The spacing on the fork is 90.5, I think. I can find hubs with small enough axles, but they're not narrow enough for the forks. I can find narrow hubs, but they have axles that are too fat. I pulled a narrow axle out of one hub and tried to fit it into the narrow hub, but then I can't seem to get cone nuts that have a big enough diameter to cover the bearings and can still thread onto a smaller axle.

Any solutions or sources for these parts? I have a wheel on the bike now that had a wider axle, but it's flat on two sides, so that I can get it in the forks if I put it in at the right angle. In fact, I might be able to reuse that axle in the new wheel if necessary, but it'd be nice if I could find a source for compatible parts. Then I'd know what my options are. Also my current wheel is a little wide, and has to be forced in, so I'd have to examine that axle to see if it can be used with a narrower hub.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Probably not too hard to just spread the forks to accomodate 100 spacing, thats 5mm per fork tine, just try to use your hands to do the spread.

I don't know about 90.5, but you should be able to find a hub that will have
a 95mm OLD.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=150315961794&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=005

I bet you could find chrome steel front hubs intended for kids bikes that would be closer in width/diameter if not right on. I bought some hubs from niagara to convert my kids' bmxes to 36h freewheel setups and they are pretty narrow. Small axle on the front also. IIRC it was only six bucks for the pair. Aluminum- have no idea where to look for that.. maybe take offs from a high end kids bike.

Thanks for the input, everyone. I have a good supply of hubs at my disposal, from a variety of bikes, but the narrow hub with the 8mm axle still eludes me. I could probably stretch my forks, but I would rather not. I was just hoping there was some source for those odd sizes that I was missing. The eBay item looks promising, but offers none of the measurements, so it's hard to say. I expect I'll have to see if the axle I'm currently using which has two sides shaved off, will fit in the hub I was going to use. If so, I'll go that route, but I don't like the idea that I may have no source for another axle should the need arise.

You can widen out the fork using a length of all-thread that will fit in the dropouts; use plastic washers and nuts on the inside and just gradually widen then back off several times on both sides till you've got the spacing you want. Then you can adjust the drops for a fatter axle with a file or Dremel.

I thought about trying to Dremel out the axle mounting points, but there's really not enough metal there to do it safely. If it comes to that, I expect it will mean looking for a new fork.