Large Scale Central

KD #1's on a Bachmann C-19

General Discussion
#1

Has anyone here tried to mount KD #1’s to the front and rear of the Bachmann C-19? I tried it today and managed to turn it into a major ordeal.

I called Sam down at KD and he said they had a coupler that had the key slot that would fit the Bachman shank so I ran down and picked up a pair.

During the conversation at the factory Sam mentioned that the Bachmann pocket might be a little low. That was the years best understatement.

How about half a coupler height to low, next 4 hours spent “making it work”, sorry much to frustrated to photograph the steps, but I could photo the

results if it would help anyone else.

Rick

#2

Absolutely, a great help… and if possible, could put this on my site too to help others…

Greg

#3

Sure Rick. I have to do the same with my 2 but haven’t felt like going through the hassle.

#4

A great reason to leave the stock couplers in place!

I find, while visiting other RRs, that they line up acceptably with Kaydee and if left closed will bump couple with Kaydee. They also work well with Accucraft. My railroad is about 50/50 Accucraft and Bachman. I had been changing out Bachman for Accucraft which isn’t too difficult in most case, but once I realized that they were compatible I stopped doing conversions. In fact, I accepted a box of Bachmann couiplers from BD a few years ago with the thought of converting all my Accucraft stock to Bachman! Seems the Bachman couplers wear better and need little maintenance where the Accucraft couplers need tweaking when new and maintenance after a few years in a humid environment.

#5

Marty,

Geez Marty, where were you that you could just run down to the factory and pick them up? Long ways from home!

#6

Well here are a coupla pictures after the fact.

Greg, feel free if it will be of use to anyone.

Paul, you must have me confused with someone else, I live in Southern Oregon about 30 miles from KD’s shop.

Ken, here ya go, it only takes like a half a day to do the first one, at least at my working speed(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)

The KD’s that were made to fit the Bachmann “keyed” tang, in #1 scale, are the (#1916 prototype head Bachmann shank couplers) and they fit perfectly onto the bachmann shank. Just take out one screw place the coupler on the shank and replace the screw, done deal. But wait a minute, if your using a standardized height for your couplers on all your cars you may not be done. I use the KD height gauge to set everything on my road so I ended up with these being half a coupler low. That’s not getting it, what to do?

After studying the situation for a while a couple of things were evident; there was no practical way to raise the height of the shank pocket on the tender or loco because of the way they are constructed, and the shanks are of a brittle metal so would not lend themselves to bending an offset. A possible solution was to make a new shank but all the milling and bending was not something I wanted to tackle at this time.

My solution,not beautiful but practical and doable.

On the tender, in this picture you can see the KD and it originally was tapered on the bottom from the back, at the left, down to the bottom that is now out in front of the shank. remember this was originally the bottom of the coupler. I filed this area out flat and square to the desired depth so it could sit on top of the shank. The shank end with the key was then filed back until the screw holes would align.

The hole in the coupler had to be bushed to fit tightly on the screw, a longer screw was dredged from a junk box and a washer added on top to contain the bushing. Now the coupler pocket cast into the tender had to be cut back about 3/16 to allow the screw head clearance when the coupler swings.

On the locomotive.

The KD was prepared exactly the same way. Here I removed the “cow catcher” and mounted a step pilot to match my other loco’s so I was able to shorten the Bachman shank about 5/16, (back to the existing offset on the shank top) and drill a new bolt hole.

Now these ended up about 3/32 high on the gauge but that is within working tolerance on this railroad(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)

I’m sure there is a dozen other ways to do this but this was my solution.

Thanks for taking a look

Rick