I use one of those little flat tools. They're very good for Kadee coupler springs. I don’t use sprung trucks. I think mine came from Kadee.
The thread through the spring is a good idea. We spend a lot of time looking for lost springs. If that becomes a non-issue, the job goes much quicker.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Being a visual person, would anyone kindly have a vid? I found this one, but I am not sure whether it helps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WNKGTYz-Qo It seems quite common to have springs fly off into the ether.
I use good-quality, needle-nose tweezers from Techni-Tool, where the jaws are ground down to mate with one another. They will cost you $30 but they are worth their weight in gold and have multiple uses other than springs. The baggie suggestion by Overmod is also spot-on.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
And work inside a transparent Baggie so that springs can't quantum-tunnel if your screwdriver slips...
For both I use a small flat bladed screwdriver in about the middle of the spring. Lets you place the spring on one dimple then compress and raise onto the upper dimple and pull out the screwdriver.
Use the MicroMark Spring Grabber:https://www.micromark.com/Spring-GrabberAn old trick to keep springs from flying away is to feed a piece of thin thread through a coil. The thread will keep you from losing the spring, and it can be pulled out of the spring after installtion.
Whats the secret to getting the springs back into metal trucks, I can get the springs back into the Kadee couplers no problem, but into the side of the trucks? I've spent 3 1/2 hours so far and only got 1 in, just by dumb luck? What do you do?