Whats the best way to clean your track off. I am getting ready to lay my track and was curious. I used Alcohol before but didnt know if that was good or not.
Our club has Centerline cars. We run them in pairs. one wet with alchol and one w/o alchol along with some pad cars in front and behind. that seems to do pretty good
Try Goof Off or Goo Gone on a rag. Works great, leaves no residue and smells like oranges. I use it both with a track cleaning car and a rag. No problems, works great.
Hoooo, now you’ve done it! You’re gonna get dozens of answers if recent thread history is any indication.
FCnota is right. Those products, used only as often as abolutely necessary, are great for both track and loco wheels. Be careful…a little goes a long way, especially around plastic. Otherwise, a big hard eraser, a Bright Boy (at hobby shops), isopropyl alcohol, a piece of masonite, all these things do a decent job. Avoid abrasive and corrosive solutions as if your track’s life depended on it…know what I mean?
What my method is using a bright boy erasor type thingy and then a polishing cloth like for jewlery with nothing on it and after that apply a thin coat of whal oil for a pair of hair clippers and this works like a dream no elec. problems or dead spots.
The yard-dog ( johncpo ) suggests this method. WD-40 is a very good cleaning agent and an electrical conductor and it will leave a shinny coat on the top of the rails. Also you can run a Dremel Moto tool around the metal wheels on your locos and then coat them as well with WD-40.
It also works in tiny amounts to clean the contacts on the motors of your locos, use it sparingly when applying it
To clean anything - including me and you
You need a solvent to dissolve contanimant’s
a vehicle to transfer the resulting suspension
and not leave any residue behind
ME/YOU - soap, water, (and a towel)
TRACK - Alcohol (and a rag) do all 3.
As for ’ oils - they all leave a residue. Give it the ‘finger’ test.
I use the Walthers Bright Boy track cleaner block. It only costs a couple dollars, works well, and lasts a long time.
I just got some MAAS metal polish. Wipe it on, wipe it off. It cleans the rails and leaves a small conductive film but its not sliperry like oil. According to the box it protects from oxidation for a long time.
I usually run a Centerline car with alcohol with a car with an absorbant pad following. One thing I have done that has eliminated alot of track cleaning is changing all rolling stock wheels to metal. Plastic wheels collect dirt, lent, trash, then when a track cleaning solvent is used on the track, it also loosenes the debris on the plastic wheels and it is spread back out over the track. If you run trains regularly, you shoould see a noticable difference by swapping to metal wheels.
centerline seems a little expensive (77$ per car) but I’ve found a kit in walthers (basically its a brightboy with 2 bolts thru it that you attach to the freight car of your choice) its about 5$. I personally just use a brightboy atm.