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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by choocher ...I like the idea of Z scale couplers, but i don't have your engineering skills. Somewhere in this wide world, there must be an easily adaptable coupler pocket, ready made or close to it, to accompli***he same thing, in less time. What about a homemade template or jig, where these babies can be knocked out en masse, and simply glued to the rolling stock? If such a beast existed, i wouldn't mind a little carving on the car itself, but attacking the inner workings of the pocket itself scares me...[/quote] It's not really all that involved, and the skills for this can be picked up quickly. For the Atlas locomotives, it's simply a matter of cutting four strips of styrene to the right length (for each pocket), gluing them in place, then drilling and tapping, and any touch-up paint needed. For each body-mounted coupler on the cars that I have worked on so far, it's simply a matter of cutting one strip of styrene to the correct length, gluing it into place, then drilling and tapping, and any touch-up paint needed. For a talgo truck like an Intermountain, MT, or similar, it should simply be a matter of dismantling the coupler box on an existing talgo truck, leaving the bottom piece that is connected to the truck, sanding that piece to the correct height, drilling and tapping, and mounting the Z coupler on top. Depending on which truck you are working with, you might have to shave off some parts of the coupler box to get a flat surface. [quote]QUOTE: ...And can these Z couplers take the linear back and forth movements of a shunting layout without causing a high number of derailents? To add fuel to the fire, i like sharp radius's, and most of my trucks are still Talgo, for that very reason...[/quote] Well, the couplers should perform similarly for that (as far as I can tell so far). And when you are talking about shunting cars back and forth, talgo trucks are much more susceptible to derailments than body-mounted couplers, regardless of how good the coupler is. ---jps
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