Puting together some old accurail coal hoppers. According to my coupler gauge, the couplers are a tad low. I figure I can fix that by adding a really thin washer between the trucks and the bolsters to raise the body up a tiny bit. Where do I get some super thin washers of an appropriae size to do this? I actually thought about making some out of cardstock but really don’t want to invest the time and trouble to do that.
Thanks
wdcrvr
Check the Kadee web site, they have different thicknesses of fiber and plastic washers just for the purpose you need.
Mike.
Kadee actually makes fiber washers of different thicknesses just for this purpose.
Thanks for the quick responses. I must confess that I have immediately ordered some Kadee red and gray washers. Problem solved.
thanks
wdcrvr
The Kadee red and gray fiber washers are one of those things it’s good to have in hobby tool box for that purpose.
I’m surprised they’re off; the Accurail cars I have were correct out of the box. No matter–Kadee washers are good to have.
I’m not surprised.
Have you watched Daniel Cortopassi’s reviews of freight cars such as ScaleTrains, Tangent, Moloco … you name it. I don’t think there is one freight car he hasn’t reviewed that didn’t have one coupler that didn’t match the Kadee heigh gauge. For some reason, it seems to be nearly impossible to get Kadee’s always able to match, out of the box.
I like Dan. The guy has copy paper boxes stuffed with trains and no layout, yet. James Wright finds the same thing on his reviews
Hah hah! Reminds me of myself. I’ve used copy paper boxes to store my trains that I have collected over the years and moved a number of times. My favorites are the harder to find paper boxes sized to hold reams of legal sized paper because they are bigger and can fit more. I still have some from when I lived in Rottenchester NY and got boxes from a guy who worked at Xerox in Webster NY.
Likewise, looks like Dan has been stock piling trains for some time as well.
He has new video’s with his new wife sitting on the sofa unboxing freight car after freight car. Heck, when I moved, I had lots of boxes like that - I could have done an unboxing series like that too! I imagine hundreds of guys could!
It would be interesting to see Dan show his layout plans and some construction progress video’s.
Dan and James are great guys with unbiased reviews!
I keep a supply of Kadee overset/underset couplers handy for situations like this.
Woodcarver…
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Send me a PM with your address and I will send you an assortment of what I use.
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There are better options than the Kadee washers.
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-Kevin
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Obviously a case of improper wheelset selection: either the car on the left needs 36" wheels or the car on the right should have 33"-ers.
Good luck spreading the sideframes to make the adjustment, though.
Wayne
Heh - I do not miss much about work since retiring in 2013, but I do miss the access to copy paper boxes – both regular and legal size paper. Our office staff knew I wanted them and would even drop them off in my office now and again. But if someone in the office was moving – they had first dibs.
I suspect the local Kinkos has some in the back room for giving away.
By the way on the actual topic of the OP while I have a supply of the Kadee washers (and the thin shims for the entire draft gear box), I also keep a supply handy of the various offfset-head Kadees, both uppers and lowers.
And on this overall topic, I find it strange how often just ONE END of a car needs this help! What’s up with that? Accurail is among the brands where that happens, either direction.
Having said that, sometimes the fault is not the car but an inadequate job by me of making the coupler draft gear box cover tight enough - the sag is my fault.
And I am not too proud to admit that at least one time (OK, OK, a couple of times) the fault was mine in that somehow some 33" wheels “contaminated” the container of 36" wheels. [:$]
Dave Nelson
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You guys must have a much better supplier than I do.
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Our copy paper boxes fall apart before we even get all the reams removed from them.
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-Kevin
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Hello All,
Well…not quite!
Depending on what the height discrepancy is, if you use too many washers the car body can be too elevated and get tippy leading to other problems.
I have and use #208, #209, and #210 washers.
For that rare occasion that the body mounted couplers are too high I also have #210; Draft Gearbox shims.
I too have a small assortment of over and understet set -couplers with various shank lengths.
When I use a set of off-set couplers I reorder to keep them in stock.
Another good point made through humor…
As was noted…
If the height discrepancy is only on one end of the rolling stock in question then yes, shimming might help.
If the entire car seems to be riding too low, or too high, wheel size might be the problem.
Years ago, when Kadee had a forum, I asked the question of what is the actual wheel size of scale 28-, 33- and 36-inch wheels sizes.
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I don’t recall the actual measurements in thousandths, but it’s easy enough to lock the setting of the caliper, then place the opening over your scale ruler, as it’s marked-off in increments of 3".
Wayne
Hello All,
Excellent suggestion!
I’m putting that one in the, “Oh why didn’t I think of that, now I know” place!
Hope this helps.
Yes, and exactly why does this happen? One would think that there is some sort of difference in the overall height of the two trucks, but swapping them end for end makes no difference to the affected car end.
