Entry posted by Ian Smith
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In my 2mm scale stock box I now have almost 10 wagons. I had decided at an early stage to make use of the DG couplings to allow hands free shunting (my P4 stock makes use of 3-Link and screw couplings to hold everything together, being much heavier I don't tend to lift everything off the rails (too often) when shunting), however what I intend to do in 2mmFS is to have my models permanently joined in groups of 2 or 3 wagons with DG couplings at the outer ends of the groups.
To achieve this I need some other (more realistic) joining method, and to this end I have decided to knock up some 3-Link couplings. Because the models are to be permanently connected into small groups, I decided not to bother with a hook as such, effectively making 5 link couplings instead, the outer pair of "links" actually being a loop-on-a-stick which can be secured into the headstock of the wagon.
Clearly, to make links this small and all the same size I decided to make a little jig first. This is simply a piece of 1.53mm square brass bar the end of which I have filed a flat on to leave an end that is 0.7mm thick (by 1.5mm wide) and about 4mm long. The original idea was to drill a hole of 0.3mm dia into the resulting step on the end of the bar to take the tail of some 0.3mm brass wire that the links will be made from, unfortunately I snapped my last drill in the process! 
The jig was completed by filing the corners off the 0.7mm,1.5mm spigot on the end of the bar so that the wire could be wrapped around snuggly and have nice rounded ends on the resultant coil.
In the end I trapped the wire and jig in the end of my hand vice and wrapped the wire around until I had gone around about 6 times, the result is a little coil of links that were separated from each other whilst still on the jig with a knife down the long side of the coils. When I slid them off the end of the jig I managed to find enough to make a little chain of 3 - the others are embedded in the dining room carpet somewhere!!
The photo below shows the jig and the chain of links with the end loops formed by wrapping a single coil around a 0.75mm drill shank. A 5 minute dip in Carr's Acidip (and a rinse) before a couple of minutes in Carr's Metal Black (for Brass) results in the finished article shown in the final photo.
I just need to obtain some more 0.3mm drills so that I can attach the little devil between a pair of wagons now (I just need to put it somewhere safe until I do!!) I should add that I have stretched the links between a pair of wagons and am happy that there will be a gap between the wagon buffers to allow them to negotiate curves (obviously with the end loops having a fixing tail I can adjust the distance quite easily anyway).
Ian
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