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Model Railroader associate editor Cody Grivno shows how to paint couplers on a locomotive.
How to paint couplers
By Angela Cotey | September 20, 2013
| Last updated on December 7, 2020
good tip Cody one thing I know about knuckles is they come in two colors found on the prototype grimy black and rust this is typical of the knuckles found on most trains.
Great Information! Thank You.
I will give it a try
Very good information.
I FOUND IT INTERESTING.
Thirty years of working as a yard clerk taught me that coupler knuckles are flat ( no molding angle on face ); therefore, I file the face flat which makes it shiny (in the real world, coupling up makes it shiny) and less likely to uncouple. Another modeler correctly noted that the airhose connector is usually rusty.
Excellent!
I like Andy's painting jig. I've been building my fleet by putting together car kits lately and will be weathering them soon. I'll have a lot of couplers to paint all at once, so his jig looks lke a real time saver over taping them to a stick. I'll have to fine tune my Kadees before I paint them as Reynold DeJager recommends below.
I read somewhere that it is a good idea, using a toothpick, to carefully place a very tiny drop of Walthers Goo on the shank end of the coupler spring (not the knuckle end) to help retain the spring on the coupler. Another item to attend to during the pre-painting tune up.
Thank you for the video! I am in the process of painting my couplers and this video has proved to be quite useful. Since polyscale no longer exists, do you have equivalent colors from other, model railroad friendly manufacturers? Thank you.
Most glad hands I see on trains are closer to rust color than silver . . . perhaps silver with a overcoat of rust would be more representative of a brake hose that has been in use.
Cool
nice !
Thank you for the tips
Great tip! However, what about doing this in N Scale? And, should I paint the magnetic trip pins on my MT couplers?
very interesting. Thought they came already the color they should be, but I can see that the dull brown Cody used makes them more realistic.
Great tip to add more detail to engines. thnaks.
Great tip from REYNOLD DEJAGERfrom WASHINGTON. smothing out the casting lines and then painting via Cody really helps in the sharing dept of our hobby !!! Thanks to MR for having Cody do these tips !!!
thanks cody.
Cody, How much do you thin the paint? 75/25 or do you go thinner?
The intros & outros to these videos give a ''This Old House'' feel, which makes me feel like I could immediately do the described project very easily!
That's a great idea about keeping the paint thin as not to gum up the works.
I first smooth the striking face of the knuckle with a small 4" jewelers single-cut file to remove the horizontal casting parting line, and repeat this lightly on the little lip on the backside of the knuckle with a very fine 3" jeweler file.
Then I always shine up the striking face of the knuckle with a pencil (slippery graphite) to allow two cars to couple up smoothly.
Then the locomotive can slowly back into a single car without pushing it down the rail. There's no need to bump into it to couple up.
Nice job
Short and simple – my kind of project.