tac foley
Registered
Hello all--first post here... a question I've already asked on MLS but realized GSC is more likely to provide an answer...
Building my garden railroad this Spring, and I'll be running pre-war German locos and rolling stock and am interested in switching out the solid plastic buffers on the Piko freight and passenger cars for sprung brass buffers, and changing out the hook and loop couplers for chain, as it's more prototypical for the location/era. Is there anyone who's made this transition who can comment on potential pitfalls or things to look out for?
I've searched here but haven't found anything about anyone running sprung buffers with chain. That could be because there's nothing posted, because the search is off, or because I'm doing it wrong
The sprung buffers I've seen don't seem to have a lot of travel, so I'm wondering what the total buffer compression on the inside pair of buffers would be. If there's not enough buffer travel, my plan was to chain up the cars just tightly enough to have the buffers near full travel on the curves--probably that means that the cars wouldn't be buffer-to-buffer on the straights except when slowing.
I've got a whole slew of questions about running sprung buffers. For instance, with the light weight of unloaded cars, I expect that there might be some accordioning when decelerating/accelerating. How do you overcome that?
Also, how much additional work is it to couple cars when the buffers tend to push the cars away from each other? Since you can't realistically chain cars together and then tighten a G scale turnbuckle, do you need three hands? One to hold each car and one to hook up the chain?
Thanks!
German standard gauge and SOME narrow gauge lines that use buffers have a ripping wheeze to prevent buffer lock. If you look carefully you'll see that one buffer face is flat, and the opposing buffer face is domed.
However, given the rather odd scale adopted by PIKO, which is categorically NOT 1/32nd scale, I can state with a certain degree of certainty that no Gauge 1 buffers would meet your needs, sprung or otherwise, given that I have no idea where you would get working German Gauge 1 buffers in the first place.
Unlike British outline Gauge 1, there is little visible interest in Germany for building home-building models in Gauge 1. All the one-off's I've ever seen in Germany and elsewhere are by builders who build EVERYTHING themselves - in 1/32nd scale. The likes of Marcus Neeser and Werner Jeggli in Switzerland, who produce truly astounding stuff like working steam turbine locomotives, and drop the occasional live GAS-turbine loco onto the tracks in Switzerland, are NOT your typical builders.
It might be time to unwrap the 3D printer, or to get somebody else to do so on your behalf. There may well be an after-market opportunity here.... My dear old friend Fred Mills and I both know of a fine gentleman who can help you out here in return only for money. He lives in the Metro Ottawa region. Google GLX 3D printed parts...
tac foley
G1MRA
