After painting and ballasting my track, I’m now dealing with dead spots that weren’t there before. Most are at switches. What is the best way to clean everything for improved performance?
I’m betting you are going to get a lot of varied opinions about the best way. I use a track cleaning eraser. Walthers has these two:
Walthers - Bright Boy Abrasive Track Cleaner - Standard Grit - 949-521
Walthers - Cratex Abrasive Block Extra Fine - 3 x 1 x 1/4" 7.6 x 2.5 x .6cm - 949-522
I used the Bright Boy for years but I recently discovered the second one because it seems a bit less abrasive. Assuming you used diluted white glue for your ballast, either should do the job.
There will be those who tell you not to use abrasive track erasers because they cause microscopic scratches in the railheads which will gather dirt. I’ll allow them to make that argument and offer alternatives.
Peco sells a very effective track eraser.
You could also burnish the railheads with a round metal bar, preferably slightly harder than nickel silver.
Several possible ways to do this, but that’s because there are several possible new problems that you have.
If the joiners are now filled with glue or paint, and no longer providing good contact, you’ve lost connectivity between lengths of track elements, not least of which would be turnouts;
If it’s the switch, at the points, maybe contaminants are preventing good contact at the under-throwbar contacts, or on-top-of-throwbar contacts. Or, if the points themselves are meant to provide continuity to the frog, contamination is preventing that. No contact between the inside face of the points and their mate stock rails;
Improperly suspended/supported turnouts, especially if their joiners are left loos/unsoldered. In an effort to keep them pesky turnouts free for removal if they develop problems, we trade another by leaving them free and maybe not well supported by ballast. They dip and sag, or roll, and the joiners lose contact.
To clean, simply wet a painter’s cloth remnant wrapped around your index finger and wipe several times over a defined length of rail head. Do this until you’re getting almost nothing turning up on the rag. Move on to another spot. Between the points and stock rail, run the rag carefully from the frog end toward the points, not the other way around…for what should be obvious reasons. Repeatedly.
For dried paint, scrap the rails carefully with scraps of scale stripwood/lumber. With a clean-cut and square edge, it will work well. Ragged broken ends won’t.
I still use 600 grit paper wet/dry with good results. Sparingly. I also coat my rail stops with kerosene. It can be purchased in 3/4 qt bottles at the camping equipment section where it is sold for wick camping lanterns. When I say coat, I mean wipe with a dampened cloth. Or, I control the drip rate strictly on my CMX brass cleaner car and run that.
Rubbing alcohol is my go-to option.
Right after brush painting the rails rail brown, I wiped the rail heads with a bit of cloth moistened in I forget what, paint thinner or alcohol. I don’t use MEK or lacquer thinner on flextrack lest it dissolve the plastic “spikes” molded into the tie strip that hold the rails in place.
Getting dried white glue off the railheads is harder. I am not aware of any solvent that will cut dried white glue. Scraping with an Xacto knife works, Brightboy works.
If the white glue has gotten into unsoldered rail joiners giving dead pieces of flex track I install more jumpers from my power bus. Turnouts often rely on electrical contact between the points and the stock rails to power the frog. I don’t consider the points as a reliable electrical connection. The Tortoise switch machines have auxiliary contacts that can be easily wired to apply juice to the frog.
I spent some time last evening and the problem seemed to be that the contact points on the switches got contaminated by paint, glue, and ballast. I spent some time on each switch last night cleaning the contact points of switches and the sides of the rails. Everything seemed to run smoother this morning.
Rob Spangler informed me he drags a utility blad backward across the rails after the paint has dried. I found it worked great for me.
As for wiping the rails while the paint is wet, it seems the cloth with the solvent could wrap around the tops of the rail when pressed down and take off more than desired - the sides of real rails remain rusty/weathered.
I’ve always used Pollyscale paint for brush-painting the rails, and it dries-to-the-touch quite quickly. It’s not, however, fully cured, but it’s dry enough that the rail tops can be wiped clean using a soft cloth over your fingertips, without removing paint from the sides of the rails.
As for dried glue, after ballast work, I use a mildly abrasive block, meant for cleaning electrical contact points. It removes the dried diluted glue and leaves no discernible scratches on the top of the rails.
After applying and “grooming” ballast, I place a little LaBelle oil on each of the ties over which a turnout’s points move, then after flicking them back and forth a couple of times, position the points in mid-throw. If your turnouts are sprung, use some strip styrene to block them in mid-throw position.
You can then wet the loose ballast and apply the diluted white glue, without fear of cementing the points in place.
I usually work in 15’or 20’ segments when ballasting main lines, and 10’ segments when there are multiple turnouts.
I find both painting the rails and ballasting track to be two of the most relaxing jobs in model railroading and also the two which give the model railroader the biggest bang for for his (or her) buck.
I’ve never had a problem with glue getting into rail joiners, either, as all of my track (other than that at the ends of bridges) is soldered together.
The unsoldered joiners are to permit removal of bridges to allow scenery work or removal for repairs.
Wayne
I have gotten most areas cleaned and running smooth. I’m having a few problematic areas in my yard where I have several switches in a row. I am at the point where I’m going to install a few more jumpers to the power bus.
Try methanol.
Woodland Scenics says methanol should be used to soften and remove their Foam Tack Glue once it has hardened.
Foam Tack glue is a variety of white glue or PVA it seems to me. It has something added to make it suitable for sticking to foam products. It seems to never completely harden.
I use water with maybe a little detergent (a wetting agent) to clean up or thin non hardened white glue but intend to switch to methanol on the basis of this information.
Once the glue gets inside rail joiners or between the points and stock rails you’ve got yourself major cleanup problem because no matter what you use to dissolve the glue it won’t remove 100%. When that test dissolved residue dries the problem may remain. At 12-14v it doesn’t take much insulator to block current.
This is where a meter is important. It could be bad connectivity and/feed, or it might just be dirt/corrosion. Sometimes just the weight of a locomotive will cause loss of connectivity at joiners. Yards, where so many turnouts are found, need careful thought, and as you say, maybe several more feeders/jumpers where you had thought you’d be safe. Happens to me all the time.
On my layout test segment, I tried somthing similar to what Dr.Wayne suggested.
I airbrushed the rails, and just before the paint was cured, but dry to the touch, I cleaned the rail heads with paint thinner in a white cloth.
Commercial track cleaners, like Peco, do not work well at removing paint from rails.
-Kevin
That’s why I paint rail with a brush, after track installation and several months of testing. Once weathered, I can’t really tell the difference between hand painted and airbrush painted track. Not to my 50 year old eyes anyway. But the brush allows me to have better control over what gets covered with paint.
Simon
What voltage across the track should I be getting with DCC
Up until the layout test segment, I painted every bit of rail I installed with a brush.
The layout test segment was all about experimentation, so I airbrushed the rails. Cosmetically, it all looked the same. The advantage was in ease of application and speediness.
I will still be brush painting my ties one at a time.
-Kevin
It depends on your command stations system, which is also dependent on scale. While unclean track may cause poor voltage, this question is likely to go down the electrical troubleshooting rabbit hole.
As such, Steve Otte will let you start a new thread in the electrical forum, for free
Methanol? That’s a new one on me. Woodland Scenics says to soften Foam Tack Glue with warm, soapy water. It goes on to say that if the glue is difficult to remove, use denatured alcohol.
Denatured alcohol is not methanol. By the way, denatured alcohol works very well to soften most white glues and even matter medium as well as cleaning dirt and adhesives off rails.
Rich
My error. Methanol is in denatured alcohol but the main ingredient is ethanol.
To my knowledge, denatured alcohol in the United States has not contained the unnecessary human poison methanol for some time. ‘Denatured alcohol’ is ethyl alcohol (ethanol) either with a ‘bitterant’ to make it intolerable to drink or an unpalatable but non-distillable adulterant like the alkane ‘hexane’.