I absolutely love what Andrew Tyhurst is doing with the N-Possible coupler in N Scale. But there’s one nagging problem on everyone’s minds: they’re not backwards compatible with the “legacy” couplers that everyone has running around. I’ve solved that problem.

The N-Possible coupler is truly amazing. It finally brings scale sized couplers to N scale that actually work. While others have tried, Andrew has pulled it off.

If you’re not familiar with the N-Possible, check out the N-Possible Website. This is what they look like.

Incredible, right? And you want to start using them immediately, right?

Well, there is one downside to them. Being scale sized, they do not work with the existing knuckles from Micro-Trains, Atlas and others that populate our fleets. At about $5 a set they’re well worth it, when you have hundreds of cars, that adds up quickly, and nobody wants half of their roster to be incompatible with the other half.

That makes adopting the N-Possible a tough sell. I’ve been working with Andrew on some of his marketing and the one thing that everyone I talk to raises as a concern is this backwards compatibility thing. Andrew’s suggestion is “use a converter car” but I know that won’t work for everyone (myself included). I lived through those days before knuckles became the norm and I definitely don’t want to go back. I don’t think anyone else does either.

I knew there had to be a solution.

So I started thinking about how to make an adapter. I thought about the East Broad Top’s legendary coupler adapter that allowed them to run standard gauge cars on their narrow gauge railroad. If you’re not familiar, here’s a Facebook post about them,  and a photo from the EBT Preservation Foundation’s site. I also started thinking about the “Hulk Hands” toys that fits over your own hand to make you The Incredible Hulk.

It’s a pretty nifty solution to a similar problem. So I fired up TinkerCAD and gave it a shot. It’s funny, I asked Andrew if I could have an STL file of the head of his couplers for fitment purposes. He said “just use a real one, that’s what I did”. Talk about prototypical accuracy…

I wanted to design something that was easy to use and didn’t require tools to install or remove (so you can quickly do it when setting up a train). This was the hardest part for me. I kept thinking of crazy ideas like a “maze” for the shank to slip through or something else nuts like that. Then I had a conversation with the talented Cletus Romano who said “why not just make a retaining clip”. Duh! Sometimes you really do just need to talk stuff through.

Anyway, that worked I started designing. It took a few revisions but I finally got there.

Here’s what the design looks like.

As you can see, it’s not the prettiest thing, but it definitely works.

This means that I can now slowly start converting my fleet, and when I have a situation where I have incompatible couplers anywhere in a consist, all I have to do is snap one of these in place. I bet, if printed in dark resin or even painted they’d just disappear.

There’s only one problem… now I have no excuses to not start converting the fleet. Shit.

If you want to make this your problem now too, you can download the file for the Hulk Hand on Thingiverse. It’s available for free under a Creative Commons license (CC-BY-NC) so you can download and print your own to your heart’s content, but you cannot sell them. I’m saving that option for Andrew if he ever decides to. If you find these helpful and want to say thanks monetarily, you can always go buy some of Ed’s Unwanted Models. If you mention you’re interested in a pair I might even throw some in the box for you.