scruffyduck

These are the Xuron cutters you need:

 

https://xuron.com/index.php/main/consumer_products/3/17

 

or

 

https://xuron.com/index.php/main/consumer_products/3/19

 

Why use piano wire ? which is high tensile steel and difficult to cut/work with,  think Peco etc supply a softer wire that's far easier to use/cut....

 

 

 

Sadly I have that one and it is a shear cutter so it will not get close to the turnout and leaves a couple of mm behind

Whilst my pins which link servo to point are removable, to do so is a major faff when it comes to re-fitting them. Like the OP, I would like to find a tool that will enable me to get a close cut on the pin at the pint it protrudes through the tie bar of my points.

That is where I am.  They are removable.  It means lifting the baseboard and refitting is likely to be somewhat hit and miss.  I am researching other types of hard wire cutters that will cut flush.

This is a place close to my heart.  We live in Mid Wales and often pass by Bleinau Ffestiniog on our way North towards Anglesey.  Great looking layout.  Many thanks for sharing

I have a  Xuron piano wire cutter which due to being a shear will not cut the pint flat to the turnout plastic.  I am left with a small bit sticking up which on code 75 rails will snag passing vehicles couplers.  I realise now that I should have bought a type where the cutting blades meet rather than crossing.  Perhaps someone can offer me a suggestion as to something that will do the job and get the last couple of mm off.  I want cutters since I don't want to use a cutting disk since I will likely damage the turnout given my general ineptitude

Many thanks for any suggestions

Thanks all for the ideas and suggestions.  I have seen the Symoba stuff but wasn't sure whether it was compatible with the UK OO stuff.

I will need to think about that one David

Thanks for the suggestions.  I have six wagons with the problem and I will try this out

Hi All

I have been some years since I last posted. However this summer I finally managed to get a layout built and working. It has only taken me 40 years!

I am struggling with couplers - no surprise there. In the past few weeks I have gone from tension lock to Kadee and back again. I don't want uncoupling ramps or magnets, I want to couple and uncouple where ever I want. I have read the anguish of others and just about every post on coupling and Youtube videos in excess.

This is where I am. Tension Lock couplers with the hook at one end only. This does make it easy to uncouple rather than the two. Downsides are a greater tendency to un-couple at the wrong times and a much greater need to have them level with each other. If there are two hooks then the chance of coupling is doubled. The chance of a clean decouple is halved (at least for me)

So here I am my couplers are not all the same height from the rails. I have replaced all the units with Bachmann but that does not solve the problem. I thought, well there is a Kadee height gauge so there must be a tension lock height gauge. Google was not my friend and I didn't find anything - someone will show me where they hide no doubt.

First I selected a wagon which seemed to fit the NEM standard and then I tried running other wagons up to it. Worked sort of but was hard to see how the units aligned or more likely when they didn't.

Next step was make something to attach to the end of my work track.

Sorry but the last picture is rather fuzzy.

Basically it is some plasticard scrap with a back plate and some strips added. The depth of the slot is 3mm and there is a 6mm hole through the back plate and end of the test track to accommodate the hook. The results so far as better than I had hoped I still need a way to adjust those which are too low.

I am interested in this and have been for some years.  I have been out of railway modelling for five years and just finally got a working layout.  I have not found anything very useful at the moment since I am just trying to understand timetables and movement 'cards'.  I am a software developer (using C# as it happens) and once I understand things I might have a tinker.  I did start once before but it got buried in the past

I wonder if any database software such as Access if an overkill unless the layout is complex.  A lot of what I have done in the past with many thousand records is to simple use comma separated text.  I suspect that a movement card might lend itself to a simple data storage mechanism.  However, since I don't really know what I am talking about at the moment......

Finally I assume that the software would be intended to create the timetable rather than just manage it so that it can be used to operate the layout