jonhall Posted February 17, 2013 Share Posted February 17, 2013 I've been working on an improvement to the standard kadee height gauge, to make it quicker to work out how much packing is required under the floor and work our where to fit the boxes. Firstly a bit of background into my prefered mountings I always screw my kadee boxes together with 10BA bolts, and then screw these into a plasticard packing I don't like the 'screw a no.5 to everything' approach - Kadee do overset and underset couplings as well - so I use them I don't like the coupling box sticking out beyond the bufferbeam (if I can avoid it) so I'll use the longer couplings that are available. Obviously the tool that needs to be in every kadee owners toolbox is a height guage, but it dosn't make things easy to establish how much packing the floor requires. My solution (still work in progress) I've soldered a brass plate between the rails of a length of track long enough to take my longest vehicle. and in the middle tapped an 8ba hole. into that I've put an 8ba bolt, with a kadee coupling and a nut, and adjusted the height so that the coupling mates with the kadee height guage, and then taken the mesurement from the brass plate to the underside of the coupler box, and cut a length of brass tube to match (there will need to be 3x brass tubes, for overset, center and underset couplers) I cant remember which is which, but the next two photos show an overset and an underset held in my guage, and coupled to a kadee height guage - looking at this again the upper of the two needs a shim of packing - it appears to be a little low! I can then roll my wagon to be fitted along, and estimate how much packing I need (I've forgotten to put the lid on this box and would need to take that into acount when setting the height) the next two photos show an overset and an underset, the higher one fouls the bufferbeam, the lower one is quite a long way from the floor of the wagon, so in this case I think a centre set is what I'm after I can even tip the whole lot on its side to see whats going on, and use shims of evergreen to work out the packing thickness. I've also drilled two holes either side of the support hole, so that I can drill the holes for mounting the coupler box in the packing. I think the next step will be to include some sort of bufferbeam on the kadee guage, so that the coupling 'reach' can be set as well. Jon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium BR60103 Posted February 18, 2013 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 18, 2013 We have a tool made with a metal block on top of the rails and a hole beneath the sleepers. A vernier caliper's tail piece is used to measure the distance from rail top to the underside of whatever on the vehicle. This is then matched with the heights given in Kadee's list. If nothing matches, packing can be applied. (Mike walton, who made the first one I saw, holds a block of metal on with a clamp. I soldered mine on.) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted February 18, 2013 Share Posted February 18, 2013 Thanks Jon, what a great idea! Give the man a prize... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted February 18, 2013 Share Posted February 18, 2013 Next, a foolproof device to aid in replacing a knuckle spring, please............. Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonhall Posted February 18, 2013 Author Share Posted February 18, 2013 We have a tool made with a metal block on top of the rails and a hole beneath the sleepers. A vernier caliper's tail piece is used to measure the distance from rail top to the underside of whatever on the vehicle. This is then matched with the heights given in Kadee's list. If nothing matches, packing can be applied. (Mike walton, who made the first one I saw, holds a block of metal on with a clamp. I soldered mine on.) I'd be very interested to see photos of this if you have any? Thanks, Jon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
shortliner Posted February 18, 2013 Share Posted February 18, 2013 Next, a foolproof device to aid in replacing a knuckle spring, please............. Best, Pete. Pete - either thread a piece of sewing cotton through the little blighter, or buy the tool (from Micromark, I think) that you prod through the spring in the centre, between two of the coils, and it holds the spring while you fit it - still a 3-handed job though! Also a good tip is do it inside a cardboard box to prevent the carpet monster eating it - the box catches most of them! - of course, if you happen to have a fume cupboard with those long rubber glove arms fitted............ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium kevinlms Posted February 18, 2013 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 18, 2013 Pete - either thread a piece of sewing thread through the little blighter, or buy the tool (from Micromark, I think) that you prod through the spring in the centre, between two of the coils, and it holds the spring while you fit it - still a 3-handed job though! Also a good tip is do it inside a cardboard box to prevent the carpet monster eating it - the box catches most of them! - of course, if you happen to have a fume cupboard with those long rubber glove arms fitted............ I find that its actually easier to 'prod the spring' about 2/3rds of the way along, rather than the centre. Then using the tool, place the long end into the fixed portion of the Kadee first, then place the other end on to the moving jaw. This way means there is less 'flopping around' of the spring. Works for me & I find that few springs - spring off to oblivion. Great idea about the cardboard box. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfsboy Posted February 18, 2013 Share Posted February 18, 2013 I use a scalpel blade to hold the little spring assuming I can find any ,Just poke twixt coils about 1/4 of the way in and push down onto the fixed end and then compress using the blade and locate the other end .i have also use a touch of glue or even grease to hold one end in place . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
shortliner Posted February 18, 2013 Share Posted February 18, 2013 My Bad - it isn't MicroMark - it is a Kadee item = http://www.kadee.com/html/118ins.pdf left hand side - second column Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium BR60103 Posted February 20, 2013 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 20, 2013 Two pictures of my device. The thing is propped up in the first picture -- holding it and the camera weren't possible. The hole and the brass sheet. At the side of the track are measuring tapes. These come free with a tour of IKEA. They're for measuring the car to determine weight. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonhall Posted March 5, 2013 Author Share Posted March 5, 2013 Inspired by the photo from 60103 of a caliper in use, but noteing the drawback of how awkward it is, I was inspired to try something similar. Again this is still work in progress, better ideas, or builds to the basic design are welcome... I bought a digital caliper from dbay for the princly sum of £5.39 (including postage) - for this you get a plastic bodied caliper that isn't as precise as the more expensive examples, but which is well suited to what I wanted to do. I then chopped one of the jaws off and tapped it to 8ba - this was when I discovered I don't really have a long enough 8ba bolt - I'm still thinking about this... The track will be fixed to a perspex trackbed,and that will be mounted on a frame of 100mm ply, but I obviously don't need the caliper to stick too far out of the bottom, so haviong investigated the idea (and drawn a blank) I took the saw again, and chopped off most of the tail as well, and added a blob of araldite as an endstop. This leaves me with about an inch of travel - at the moment the tail still sticks out below the frame, but until I've finallised the mounting I don't know quite how much I need. This is mocked up with double sided sticky tape at the moment - my original plan was to have the readout part free to move, and the 'ruler' part fixed, but at the moment I'm wondering about swaping that over, and having the readout fixed and the ruler move... TBD Jon Jon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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