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Not sure if you are aware but the Kadee #6 has now been discontinued from the manufacturer. 

I bought and suggested the no.6 because the pack I have was only £2 ... now I know why! Almost anything with a centre-set shank would do for the techniques in the last few posts, though a no. 146 - which has a longer shank and a built-in spring - is very adaptable and is now my favourite for UK models.

This is probably tricky and I haven't done it yet.

It is easier than it sounds, you can tweak the height of the no. 6 coupler in the box while the glue sets.

One caution we haven't mentioned yet, is if you use a standard Bachmann or Hornby style NEM socket, and the forward-facing trip pin is a bit low and hits an obstruction at some speed, the impact can tear the box from its 'fish tail' at the narrow web.

If you can squeeze in a Kadee below a tension lock you would make a very useful dual-fitted locomotive.

I have converted a wagon with a similarly high NEM pocket by taking a Kadee no. 6 coupler, crushing the pivot with pliers, and fixing it into the pocket with Devcon. This is not ideal, because the coupler only pivots where the pocket pivots; a correct conversion using a no. 18/19/20 has a second pivot in the knuckle itself ... but it does put the coupler at just the right height!

As long as the NEM pocket is a standard Bachmann one (do check this), there isn't much to lose ... you could try it and get a new pocket if it doesn't quite work out.

When I was doing N gauge, Kadee (as they were then) supplied little springs to go on the axle ends of cabooses to provide some drag.

The springs sound like a good idea for all wagons on a layout with modest train lengths, and where the gradients are fairly mild. Like the light railway I keep promising myself. The foam block idea (Ramblin Rich, post #56 and others) might be better as a temporary fit, where you want to run models in longer trains like a club layout from time to time.

...

However, the basic idea is good, so does anyone know of a source of thinner lead sheet, say 1.5mm or less?

The lead sheet I have measures 0.053 inches (1,35 mm), I expect it is left over from roof flashing.

EDIT: The weight of my 7.5 x 10.5 inch offcut is 740 g: about 9.4 g per square inch (if you excuse the mixed units!)

Here is a working solution. I modified the coupler on the loco so it opens further. This means removing the spring, filing away at the end stops top and bottom, and putting the spring back in. I cut the trip pin off the coupler on the wagon. This works over my 'button' magnets (photos) and also on the Kadee no. 321 surface uncoupler. So you can have a train of unfitted wagons without unsightly trip pins, and still detach the loco using magnets ...

On my own models, I generally add extra weight to r-t-r wagons and, with 9/10 foot wheelbase stock I aim for 40-45 grams, long wheelbase vans, 60-70 and bogie stock at least 100. A bit lighter than the NMRA standard, but quite adequate empirically. However, consistent mass produces consistent running whatever couplings are in use. In my case it has less to do with overcoming the buffing force than reducing the tendency of vehicles to move under the power of uncoupling magnets acting on their axles!

With open wagons, I really recommend using lead flashing rather than shot - there are no air gaps so you can get more weight in a given space. I'm still recycling old stuff that came off my roof when it was re-done a few years ago but Builders Merchants sell it off rolls about 6" wide so it shouldn't be too expensive to get a foot or so that will do lots of wagons.

 

Open wagons without loads can be a real problem - I make the new weight to fill as much of the chassis as possible without interfering with the wheels. It is easily cut with a small pair of snips (or even a large pair!). Cut away any unnecessary part of the moulding to make room (e.g. the little tubes that are often provided to accommodate the ends of straining rods if the chassis is used under a tank wagon but are otherwise superfluous. 

Backtracking to last weekend and to three weeks ago, I now have an offcut of flashing from my local builder, it is a lot less messy to work with than lead shot dust. My first application (photo) was almost too much: a strip 23 mm wide, folded to a double thickness with a hole for a fixing boss weighs 35g. It replaces a strip of mild steel which weighed 7g, and it takes the total weight of the wagon up from about 25g to 53 g.

I agree small open wagons are a lot harder to squeeze enough lead in, and I am reconciling myself to the idea that a 32 g wagon is going to run a lot better than a 26 g one, and be content with that. Some wagon loads would make the task a lot easier. I am still experimenting with magnets; but the 'leaded' tar wagon with its steel axles still finds the magnets too easily.

Did you install the magnets as a pair to get greater force or in opposition (trying to repel each other) so as to get effectively the same force pattern on each side? I am guessing the latter and, if so south to south or north to north?

At the moment this is a lash up. The magnets are holding themselves together, i.e. opposite poles touching.  It would need some very strong glue to hold them 'in opposition', they will spin round and fly over a foot on the workbench when they get near each other. They are sitting on one of those self adhesive foam 'grab tabs' on the block of wood. I fancy fitting some thin card below the sleepers to hold the ballast, and fitting the magnets to a length of thick dowel so they can be moved up or down, or even swapped out for some different ones, from below the baseboard. It might be worthwhile to put some small steel washers between them, to put them further apart, this needs experimentation. I would like to work through my stock, to see if I can find a coupler that does not uncouple properly, before I do anything permanent.

I have found I can easily cut a Kadee no. 308 magnet using a knife, and then break it into strips ... and that the strips are barely magnetic at all.

Having put the pieces to one side, I tried the arrangement below and it works really well. This is a pair of 10 x 4 mm "button"  magnets, positioned with their top edges about 5 mm below the tops of the rails. I am lucky I chose a track bed I could alter easily, but I think this will take a cosmetic rebuild without altering the performance. The delayed uncoupling is perfect, and the tendency for wagons to centre themselves over the magnet has gone. I don't know the name of the magnet manufacturer/distributor, possibly 'Centurion', they were in a pack of two in an ironmongers. Happy.

Perhaps 'Steam' at Swindon undersold the models, in that if they had been £20 more then fewer dealers would have bought them. But I cannot blame Dapol for allowing a virtually unused livery to be sold off too soon as an unrepeatable 'special edition'; they had no idea how the model would be received. Indeed very soon after the model was launched, someone posted here to the effect the headcodes have got to go; the market is fickle.

I wanted to buy a Western Enterprise too, but failed to secure an order. I have given up looking (I saw one go on eBay for £280+); but if I really wanted one now (I am much too young to remember the real thing), I would buy a less popular colour, and some paint, and have a go. Treat it as an excuse to do a bit of modelling, and enjoy it afterwards as a personal best effort; or pay someone to respray it. Even if paying someone costs a bit more than the eBay dealer, it will be more satisfying in the long run.

Now reduced to £249.99.

 

Could be there a good long while..... 

I guess the seller is targetting 'collectors'; the sort of people who pay extra for a postage stamp with a defect or a Dinky lorry with different coloured wheels. What would be good now would be a batch of 500 or so in Desert Sand with small yellow panels; much more useful than a livery which lasted less than a year.

Another alternative to the Kadee permanent magnets are small round Neodymium magnets from eBay, positioned between the sleepers either side of the rails. Their field is much smaller so stopping in the right place is critical, but will have less effect on unwanted uncoupling or affecting exisiting stock with steel weights or wheels & axles. 

This ought to work well, with the flux pulling the pins sideways rather than the whole wagon downwards. Perhaps two longer 'strip' shaped magnets would be better. Could you post a photo? I tried one of the 'button' magnets (about 10mm dia x 4 mm thick) on edge between the rails, it works as an uncoupler but not a delayed uncoupler, and if there is any slop in a coupler mounting, it pulls it downwards not sideways.

If you haven't long done it, hot water will probably loosen the pva enough to get it out fairly easily.

 

John

I had done six wagons by the time I read Ravenser's post . I have stripped down three of them, with some warm water to remove the remains of the residue, and reworked them with fresh lead and super glue. The other three I shall put some red paint underneath as a reminder, I glued up the brake gear too well.

Changing the ballast from steel to lead has made next to no change to the behaviour of a wagon over a Kadee no. 308 uncoupling magnet. I like the idea of non-magnetic axles, but I would like to try lowering the magnet first ... many of my wheels are steel discs, not just steel rims. As it happens, the track bed is 5mm foam board, and the magnet is glued into a hole below the track on top of a second piece of foam board. With luck it will drop out from below the track and I can then try fixing it say 2mm lower. The Kadee surface mounted permanent magnets are a lot weaker and work better, at least for me so far.

Another idea would be to ballast over the no. 308 with the lead dust shot?

Richard:

 

A word of warning - correspondence in MRJ in the last year has revealed that PVA is acidic and promotes corrosion of lead very nicely 

...

Use superglue, use araldite, but don't use pva with dust shot....

Thanks for this, just in time before I did the whole fleet. A bulging and broken model is one thing, white lead dust is serious ... I have added a warning above my last post.

There are some graphic photographs here:

http://www.lner.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2737

Superglue works well and makes for a quicker job. For the wagons I have done: well, the quantity of lead is relatively small, at least smaller than a 7mm model; perhaps I will get away with it. It is probably easier to buy a new wagon, and take the wheels and couplers across, than unpick everything.

Edit: WARNING do not use PVA with lead, this can create corrosion and white lead, a toxic heavy metal dust. See next post number 101 by Ravenser on next page of this thread.

I haven't got any lead sheet (and the builder's merchants are shut) but I have found my bag of lead shot, it is marketed as 'Fluid Lead' with a spec. diameter of 0,5 to 1,0 mm. Still wanting to try this (instead of lead strip), I stripped the grey open wagon in my last post, took out the steel weight and put a puddle of dilute pva into the underframe. For this particular moulding (Bachmann), there is nowhere for it to run out. Then I filled it level with the lead shot, and used a cocktail stick to clear the area around the fixing holes for the bosses on the underneath of the body (photo).

The result is quite dramatic: the original wagon (with shortened steel weight) weighed 21 g; it now weighs 31 g. The steel weight weighs 5 g, so the lead must be three times as much, 15 g. Above all, the wagon now 'feels' a whole lot better, tho' I suppose it will now wear out its axle bearings more quickly and someone will tell me I will have to fit brass ones. I am very pleased so far. (The wagon is probably the one in my post number 73 on 15th June, but I'm not sure).

(Edited to add warning notice above)

Well, I must do something! In this photo, the loco is pulling the wagon using the magnetic attraction of the two trip pins, after leaving the wagon after a delayed uncoupling. More weight in the wagon should sort this one out. Unfortunately I read post no. 57 as "add some extra weight using sheet lead" (my mistake), concluded my wagons didn't have enough room to add anything significant, and let it pass. On the bright side, only one of my wagons is glued together, so it should be straightforward to dismantle them, remove the steel plates and add some lead in their place. Somewhere I have a bag of liquid lead (about 'rat size' lead shot) and this would be ideal. Unfortunately I had a tidy up a few months ago ...

I printed out the order form on the WLA web site, filled it in and posted it with a cheque for the deposit to the address on the form. I received an acknowledgement by return from a person 'John' who uses the mailbox t.hallowes015@btinternet.com, and later an email from Paul Davies of the WLA, who told me he is hoping the day draws closer when the models will arrive on these shores! Perhaps your contact is just away for a few days, and they don't have enough people to cover.

I have built a test track with one of Kadee's #308 'under the track' uncouplers. Free-running wagons with a steel weight inside them will accelerate towards it, overshoot a tad and then sort of 'boing' their way back to sit squarely over the top of it. Am I the only person this happens to?

I am working my way through my accessory bag. There are four tension lock couplers in there instead of two, but the two "broad fluid fillers" which go into the sole bars on the opposite side to the speedo cables are missing. What do these represent, so I know what to ask Dapol for? (The other contents of the bag are complete and correct).

Sandboxes? See the DCCSupplies spares list.

 

Nick

I wrote to Dapol to ask them if they could send me the missing sandboxes, and they referred me to DCC Supplies. I wrote to DCC Supplies; they replied by return of email with a request for my address; and the missing sandboxes arrived in the post today - complete with an invoice with the relevant details and a discount of 100% applied! I have fitted the parts, and so my blue 'Western', which I shall probably call 'Western Lugs' until I decide on a proper name for it or fit the parts supplied for 1005 Venturer, is now complete.

So again, top marks to Dapol and to DCC Supplies.

I have one tiny doubt. Effectively, I bought a RTR model railway locomotive, which happens to come with an pack of unspecified extra parts. The pack is not described in the manufacturer's literature. If the supplier had not been Dapol / DCC Supplies, could the supplier have reasonably told me I had no right to expect particular accessory parts? As it happens, they are illustrated for the 'Western' in one of Andy Y's posts here; but this whole thread and the approach to a new RTR model it represents is in a class of its own.

...

I can only see "waddle" as an issue where sharp  or "S" curves have already limited the coupler's sideways travel, although other issues may occur due to the vehicle dynamics because of shorter and more varied stock lengths, and unfeasable changes in vertical transition on a gradient.

This photograph is an attempt to show a slightly contrived example. Imagine the loco approaching from the right intending to collect the wagon. The combination of a fairly gentle curve (about 4' 6" radius) and an exaggerated 'waddle' put the couplers out of alignment. When the loco meets the wagon, it pushes it away.

If this is any help, at the moment (Kadee beginner, four week's use) I have never seen a train divide itself (two hours on club layout) and uncoupling with a magnet between the rails works perfectly on most of the stock, and hardly ever on a couple of wagons. If I have a 'problem' it is that the stock runs so freely then it sometimes just rolls away from the approaching coupler. There is a lot of useful guidance about adding weight to wagons in this thread, but I have put off doing this until I have an '00' layout of my own. The sharp-eyed will see evidence that the track in the photo is glued down; I made a start yesterday.

I bought a rolling road last weekend and soon discovered that most of my rtr locos waddle, the buffer beams (and couplings) move sideways as the wheels turn, usually one 'kick' at the same part of each revolution of the wheels. Naturally enough, the longer the overhang (like the front of a 4-6-0), the worse the movement is. Looking at a Bachmann 03, a Hornby 08 and two of their J94s, the usual moverment is up to +/- 1mm.

Given much uncoupling is between a loco and its train, this could be why many people regard Kadees as a fiddle or unreliable. It is probably a lot more significant than wheel profile or sideways slop; and of, course, the tension lock coupler just soaks it up unnoticed. Actually, one of my J94's was waddling nearly +1 mm / -2mm - this was a tight coupling rod pulling the wheels and axles in their bearings. I solved it with a droplet of oil on each crankpin, perhaps I was lucky. For the others, I guess the cause is wheels crooked on their axles, wrong quartering or tight crankpins. All of these locos have coupling rods ... my Dapol Sentinel is fine.

I have always used an oval of Setrack for running in locos; but a rolling road shows mechanical problems much better.

Yes, "Sand box 2". (The narrower version beside the speedo cables being "Sand box 1"). The spares page is quite informative about all the hoses too!. Many thanks.

The accessory bag supplied includes buffer beam piping, door and side steps if curve clearance permits, dummy and tension lock couplings, speedometer cable and scale brakes for mounting at each end of each bogie (if you don't want your model to traverse any curves!). 

 

2.jpg

 

I am working my way through my accessory bag. There are four tension lock couplers in there instead of two, but the two "broad fluid fillers" which go into the sole bars on the opposite side to the speedo cables are missing. What do these represent, so I know what to ask Dapol for? (The other contents of the bag are complete and correct).

... My carpet monster must be much more agressive than yours.  For that reason, I used a slightly different method. Rather than a needle, I used a short length of 0.33mm brass wire and threaded each lug on to it in turn, cutting it from the etch with a pair of small Xuron shears whilst holding the wire between fingers:

 

1001-01.JPG

 

Other than that, my approach was quite similar, though I just put a dab of superglue on the end of the lug before pressing it into its hole rather than using a solvent glue.

At my step number 2, I put a finger over the top of the blade before cutting so the loose lug can only stay where it is on the post card. Then I pick up the sprue using the scalpel, move it away from the lug, and go on to step 3. You need to keep a "dry finger" for step 2, separate from the one you keep wetting to pick up the lug in the step 3. (This could have been another photo at position 2.5, but it would have shown only a collection of fingers).

I found the needle helpful because the taper means the lug always stops in the same place and the process becomes quite consistent from one lug to the next. However someone might like to blend the two techniques together: hold the lug on the needle and then cut it off with the side cutters. If the carpet monster is a problem, you could try working inside a clear plastic bag.

I did cheat a bit, I put two or three lugs in 'dry' and then added the solvent. This would be impossible using super glue, so perhaps the solvent approach is a bit quicker.

"To lose one lug may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose any of The Macallan looks like carelessness".

I haven't seen much about fixing the roof lugs, this is my approach in case anyone finds it useful:

1. Tools required are a scalpel, a clean white post card, a needle and a pencil rubber. Push the needle through the rubber to make a handle for it.

2. Place the edge of the scalpel against the moulding. I am not using an 'Optivisor' or equivalent, it is easy to feel when the blade is in the right place. Cut out the lug, keeping it on the post card.

3. Lick a finger on your "secondary hand", touch the lug and pick it up. Then put the needle through the lug. My needle goes through about 2mm.

4. Turn the lug so it is pointing downwards. Place a finger over the lug and put it into its recess on the roof. It seems best to work along the roof in the same direction as if you were putting emulsion paint on a wall, I should go left to right.

5. Holding the lug in place with the needle, slide off your finger.

6. Pull out the needle.

7. Add a droplet of Mekpak or equivalent, let capilliary action draw it into the joint.

As an optional extra, place a glass of The Macallan (12 year old) (substitutes possible) beside you when you start. Small doses seem to bring confidence and act as little rewards along the way. There are no spares provided, but if you are methodical then this seems to work well.

Edit: all 32 done, no losses, about two hours in all including writing this post. Be careful to keep the droplets of solvent really tiny. If it runs onto the painted roof it is best to leave it alone to evaporate; if you touch it you may damage the painted finish.