Q- I assembled a piece of rolling stock and noticed that there is a height difference between the coupler on the car and other couplers. How do I fix that?
A. There are two possible causes of this. Either the bolster height is off or you may need couplers with a different shank.
Our truck and coupler kits come with Kadee 148s, which are center shank. There are also underset and overset shanks. The difference is where the coupler head is.
If the bolster centers get ruined during the process, you can cut new ones from the carrier tray of the thickness that you need. Drill a hole in the center- it will help with guiding the screws into place.
Q- Why is it that some rolling stock is marked HO/HOn3 and some are marked HO?
A- The kits marked HO/HOn3 can accept either HO scale trucks or HOn3 trucks, depending on which you choose. Some cars, such as the Pickle Car are marked as HO because of the design of the side rails. It probably could be HOn3, but would require modifications and different wheels. The 44-Foot Heavyweight Logging Car comes with LaBelle Buckeye trucks, which are HO.
Q- I'm a beginner to wood craftsman kits. What kit should I start with?
A- There are a few choices. The 24 or 36-Foot Flatcar is a good place to start for rolling stock. For a structure, we recommend starting with the Nottingham Carriage House.
Q- What glue and other products would you recommend for building wood craftsman kits?
A- We have a general help file in the Instructions tab of the website. It provides products, tools, tips and techniques. This file is updated about once each year with new information and is a great place to start.
Q- We've noticed Conowingo Models kits on Ebay. What is the difference?
A- We added products to the Ebay store to draw customers to us. All rolling stock kits on Ebay come with Kadee trucks and couplers, unless it's something like the Oyster Car, which already comes with Fox Pressed Steel trucks. Ebay kits also have shipping included in the price.