After searching for a coupling which was reliable, unobtrusive and still allowed for easy shunting with a shunters pole I was at a bit of a loss. The rapido is plain ugly and poor for shunting, the DG I found fiddley to assemble and tricky getting them to couple and uncouple if not perfectly assembled and mounted. The Micro Trains couplings are ok, but expensive and still fairly unreliable if not quite lined up right.
So, I had a bit of a brainwave, a year or so ago I read an article by Jim Smith-Wright and he had used magnets and elastic to create connecting brake pipes. I thought perhaps I could mount something similar in a central position and use it as a coupling; N Scale being smaller, the stress on the coupling being less.
I did a few experiments and I have devised a visually unobtrusive, easy to shunt and cheap method of coupling.
It's fairly simple;
I purchased the magnets from here. I then drilled a 1mm hole centrally in the buffer beam either end. One end I used some superglue and just pushed the magnet strait in the hole.
The other end I glued in a short length (length depends on wheelbase and minimum radius curve the model must negotiate) of elastic; To the end of this I glued another magnet.
Now I have couplings which are much smaller and more covert than Rapidos, couple regardless of height and are cheap to make.
Things to watch: Make sure the polarity of the magnets is correct, or else they will repel each other!
Hope this is of use to someone!
Kindest Regards,
Jack