Coupler confusion!


D

DianneB

New Member
I have been away from the hobby over 30 years and much has changed. Now, with retirement, I am putting together a backwoods logging road with a couple of Shays and planned to build my own 40' skeleton logging cars from steel (for weight) and wood with Archbar trucks but I am bewildered by the huge array of couplers! I will need couplers and pockets and like the idea of the "delayed magnetic" couplers but there are still so many options that I don't know what to buy.

Being retired, price is a factor and I would like to build as many cars as I can for the dollars spent on couplers and trucks.

What is the best coupler for the money?

Thanks!
 
Layout idea sounds real good. Do check out the Pinnacle Creek build thread.

What is the best coupler for the money?
Click to expand...
Kadee
http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/coupler.htm

Is this Standard gauge HO? Then Kadee #5 couples would work well and have the delayed magnetic action. Buy them in bulk and the price per coupler is lower. These are available with coupler pockets and work great on scratch built cars.

For a closer to scale couple the Kadee #58 or #158 are good.

For Log cars Kadee has the #115 coupler box that fits the #148 coupler:
http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/page115.htm
 
There are a number of manufacturers that make magnetic knuckle couplers (Kadee, McHenry, Bachman, etc.) fortunately these are all compatible with each other. Kadee is the original, and the gold standard. The others are all copies of the Kadee design.

Kadee's couplers are metal, most of the clones are plastic and not as robust.

Kadee has a wide range of different variations, but there is basically one or two standard versions, and everything else is a variation to fit particular situations. (Higher or lower heads, longer or shorter shafts, integrated whisker springs, narrow "scale" mounting box, etc.)

The original standard coupler is the Kadee #5. Kadee also has a #58 with a smaller, more "scale" head, which looks a lot better. Everything else from Kadee is a variation on one of the above two couplers. I think that the Bachman and McHenry plastic couplers roughly match the scale-size #58.

There are two other types of HO scale couplers, the old classic "horn-hook", which doesn't look remotely like any sort of real coupler, and the Sergeant coupler, which is designed to look and operate almost exactly like a real coupler. Neither of these are compatible with the other common HO knuckle couplers.
 
I agree with the Kadee #5 and #58's.
I've seen guys who take the Tyco style couplers and shave them down to look closer to a proto coupler, sort of a "good enough for now" thing.
Can't get any cheaper than that!
 
Okay, #58s it is! Ordered a mess of couplers, draft boxes, and the first batch of archbar trucks.

I have been following the Pinnacle Creek build thread and will undoubtedly be stealing some of his ideas :D

Thanks for the thoughts folks!
 
waltr said:
Layout idea sounds real good. Do check out the Pinnacle Creek build thread.


Kadee
http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/coupler.htm

Is this Standard gauge HO? Then Kadee #5 couples would work well and have the delayed magnetic action. Buy them in bulk and the price per coupler is lower. These are available with coupler pockets and work great on scratch built cars.

For a closer to scale couple the Kadee #58 or #158 are good.

For Log cars Kadee has the #115 coupler box that fits the #148 coupler:
http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/page115.htm
Click to expand...

Kadee hands down. The clones are ok if not pulling long or heavy trains. However, they don't hold up well with hard coupling. Avoid the clones with the flat knucle springs. and don't forget a coupler gauge. Phil
 
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