I still wish there were a better solution. Micro-trains have the slinky effect, Accumates come apart and/or lose their trip pins, McHenry's at least to my eyes are too large and I do not care for the appearance of the outside spring or the possibility of their coming off. The ideal coupler would be a smaller knuckle-size Micro-trains that did not slinky. I'll bet such could be made if a manufacturer really wanted to do this.
WEll,yeah,I'm certainly not small part challenged,I have special tools I developed to put 1015's together,I do 20 in about a half hour,LOL!!.. Tony,there's one huge BUT here,though..If they don't have boxes,then they're really useless for the most part,just replacements for Accumates and MTL's,maybe the occasional B-Mann or other useless dummy coupler,using their boxes..Accumates are,what? a buck a set,with boxes?If you already have crapumates,I could see McHenry's as replacements for failed couplers,but I certainly wouldn't put them in existing MTL boxes,I'd rebuild the RARE broken MTL [dropped car,most likely..]with another MTL.I actually have a pile of Accu-Mate trucks with bad couplers,I'm sitting here,kinda considering if I want to rebuild the trucks with McH's,or chop off the boxes,and just use body mounted 1015's..Less work,or less money...Hmmm....
One of my FP45's lost a spring somehow, I hadn't run it much so it may have been missing when I got it as the other four units and several freight cars with them are ok. The springs on all the couplers I have on Athearn equipment seem to have blackened springs that are not really noticeable. I don't see the McHenry as an all out replacement for MT's, but rather for applications where there is no room for an MTL as all the Mchenry's working parts are in the knuckle itself. Close coupling IM F units is one application that comes to mind, we need McHenry to do various styles like T-shanks.
WEstfalen,if they're the same length as MTL's,there not gonna be a better replacement for IM F's than what's already on them...
Ohh, I can't wait to get some of these and try them out! Going from the pictures on Nscalesupply's website, they don't look bad at all. And if they fit in a MT box like Tony said, then that's even more of a reason to pick some up. Plus, no more slinky!!! And to the problem of losing the knuckle springs, I've seen the HO guys dab a bit of superglue to the end of the Kadee spring to help hold it in place. So that could work here if they keep popping springs. As a side note, I always thought AccuMates looked really big and crappy, I guess since they stuck out so far. Well, I started body mounting them on my unit train of coalveyors the other day and was surprised at how much better they looked. Even compared to an MT. I still dont' like them though cause of the trip pins falling out and random uncouplings. Accm. on left, MT on right So if the McHenry's fit in a MT box and stick out the same distance as a MT, then I'll start converting. Getting rid of the slinky effect is my top priority, since that just ruins it for me. Tony, is it possible for you to check and see how well a McHenry couples to a MT #905 Z scale coupler? I would think that it would work fine, just wanted to know for sure. Mike
I understand that, which is why I said we need McHenry to do a variety of styles. A short shank version with the same style screw mount shank as the Unimates some of us use on our IM F units would give both close coupling and working couplers.
Tony,As you may already know the HO KD coupler spring isn't immune to flying off either if the coupler is improperly handled and in some rare cases falls off from use. My concern is this..The HO Mchenry coupler shank is weak and has a tendency to break or the coupler face will fold while shovel long cuts of stock weight cars.I hope these N Scale couplers won't do the same. I will buy some Athearn cars with these couplers and give them a test.
Short Shank? If they make a short shank, I'm tryin em. If they don't, I won't. I looked in my "Bad order" stack last night. 100% of the coupler problems were from Accumate. No MT. I hope the McHenry are more reliable and come with a short shank option.
