OK, I’ve been airbrushing my couplers with a flat finish paint (think Floquil) and the mechanism works freely but when the face of two painted couplers meet they won’t couple unless they are shoved together with more force than I’d like to see. My theory is that the flat paint on the coupler(s) face creates more friction and doesn’t allow them to slide past each other as easy as opposed to unpainted. Maybe I should just leave them unpainted? Anyone else run into this?
Chris
Try this: http://kadee.com/htmbord/page231.htm
Burnish the faces of all your couplers and you’ll love the way they “Kiss” without fail.
You got the answer in one. Coupler faces should be left unfinished, preferably burnished. Especially with free-rolling wheelsets, the coupler forces are so miniscule that any extra friction is too much.
You can clean off the faces with an emory board (fine side please, rubbed horizontally,) and then rub them with the concave side of a stainless steel auto body washer. That should result in immediate improvement.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with Kadee couplers)
Have to agree with Chuck and RIN here. The smoother the face of the coupler the better the coupler functions.
Thank you gentlemen. I will remove the paint and burnish the faces. Much better than slamming them together at 20 mph.[:-^]
Now if you could just figure out how to couple on curves.[:-^]