what is the easiest way to clean the tracks if u cant make it out to a hobbie shop to get it the stuff they sell. is there houehold products or im i better going to the hobbie shop and buying the stuff
Try looking in the Health and Beauty Aids section at Wal-Mart and in the automotive section. Get some hairclipper oil and a small can of Mother’s wheel polish. Polish your track with the Mother’s. Then lightly coat the rail with a small amount of the clipper oil in a small section. Then run a train around the layout to spread the oil. Don’t use so much oil that you soak the joint. A little goes a long way…
I use MAAS metal polish (usually avaiable at Home Depot). It’s like waxing your car. Apply a very small dab with a clean cloth on a section of rail, and then wipe clean with a second clean cloth. You should see black streaks on your second cloth and the rails will shine like new. It also leaves a protective coating behind that will keep your rails clean longer. This residue is benign as it doesn’t have any ill effect on traction. I’m always concerned about using cleaners that leave a reside behind that reduces loco traction.
I’ve tried all the ways of cleaning track and this is by far the most effective.
Oh boy, here we go again… This type of thread always seems to generate some very strongly-held opinions…
I don’t really have any, myself. in the past, I used a track-cleaning car (CMX Clean Machine) with solvents of some kind (e.g. nail polish remover)… So the tracks got very clean, but with nothing that “coated” them.
Going forward, once the new layout is done, I’m very tempted to try the MAAS or similar. I’ve heard lots of very positive reviews. I’m also tempted to try Goo Gone, since it’s done amazing things for me in other applications - but I’m not sure if that leaves a residue or not…
I’ve not tried Wahl oil or similar, but simply can’t see any way putting oil on the tracks is a good idea…
Flitz electrical contact cleaner,it leaves behind a protective coating .Also cleans copper,silver,gold and any other metal. You boys can use your Wahl clipper goop or MAAS goop,but I’ll stay with Flitz,works alot better. Then again no need for a heated debate,use what you think works best.
Patrick
Electrical contact cleaner sounds like a pretty good idea to me. I may try the Flitz myself. Then I can come back with some good flaming for anyone who doesn’t use MY way. [8D]
I thought that Flitz and MAAS were the same type of polish. Is there a difference?
nail polish remover does that work i thought it would be unsafe for the track because of some of the chemicals in it
Well last week (Jan 9 – 13) I spent working on my layout. I started doing some plaster scenery again. After the plaster mess was dry I went around the sceniced areas with a clean cloth to remove any plaster that may have gotten on the railheads. Vacuumed up any dust and then on Sunday (Jan 15) hosted and operating session with 44 people in attendance.
Now I still have not cleaned my track with any track cleaning cars (which I no longer own) nor did I have to rewax any of the track on the layout due to the plaster scenery work. The last and only time I have waxed the track was back in July 2003!
Now would any of you try THAT with your conventional cleaning cars or methods with over 40 visitors/operators running your layout and equipment?
Metal Polishing the track is the answer PERIOD!
BOB H – Clarion, PA
Thank you Bob…,I agree with you 100%. Regardless if its Flitz or MAAS {although I haven’t used MAAS} this is the way to go.
Patrick
Has anyone tried NEVER-DULL/ This is the stuff we use to poli***he NICKEL SILVER on the Rolls and the Copper and Stainless on the Ferrari. I have read all these threads and am to the stage of doing something. The NEVER-DULL is a wadding and the can says that it leaves no deposites in the crevices of the metal. The stuff is made by Eagel-One.
I haven’t had especially good luck with metal polish (though I haven’t yet found/tried any MAAS or Flitz, so maybe I’m using the wrong type). It works for a while, but then the stalling and flickering headlights come back. I have my layout in a spare bedroom which is not very dirty, so I’m not sure how the track gets dirty so fast.
Recently I made a couple track cleaning cars of my own out of a couple old boxcars. I drilled holes in the bottom and made some masonite pads with nails glued to them that stick up through the holes in the boxcar floors. I’ve heard other people say this works, and it was certainly a cheap solution, so I thought I’d give it a try.
I have to say, it works pretty well. I still have to run the track cleaning cars around every couple of days, but that’s easier than polishing all that rail by hand. The masonite pads are removable, so the boxcars can still be used as boxcars, and the pads can be cleaned with a light sanding.
I tried the Mother’s polish once. Put it on very sparingly, and wiped the rails off afterward, to make sure there was no bad residue.
Two days later I got to clean the black deposits off the wheels of my Dash 8.
Yes, the engine wheels will still needed cleaned for a while, but as running time on the layout increases the cleaning will get further and further apart.
Now your plastic wheels on the cars and for that matter the metal wheels will start to clean themselves off once the metal polish has been on there for a while.
What I have found (and this is over the past 20 years of a Club environment) is that the plastic car wheels are actually cleaning your track, to a point, just as the Masonite draggers do, but the car wheels can only hold so much dirt until they begin to redeposit it onto the tracks.
Now I was lucky on my layout as most of the cars were new out of the box and they did not have the dirty built up from years of running. I also had been replacing a number of trucks on older cars before I put them on the new layout. So I probably was not seeing the redepositing of the dirt on the rails as a number of you have so stated.
But I have not had to clean the engine wheels as much as I did before I used the metal polish. Now I really do not know the reasons why my basement environment would be any better than an upstairs bedroom but if the heating is recirculating hot air then it will deposit dust onto everything much faster than hot water baseboard heating.
BOB H – Clarion, PA
where can u find flitz or maas at i want to try it but dont know where it can be found
I use Blue Magic (liquid - a lot more work then the paste) and Mother mag Wheel Polish. Both work fine.
BOB H - Clarion, PA
Chris - I bought my tube at Home Depot a couple years ago, but I’ve noticed that this store no longer stocks it. Not sure if it’s a temporary outage, or HD stopped carrying it. I’d also try Walmart or Target.
Or you can see them online at: http://www.maasinc.com/products_metalpolish.html
If you have a murry’s auto parts near you, try there… They carry it (flitz) here at the ones in Michigan… I went with the blue magic… Works great and a lot less expensive. The key as I see it is the applicator. CMR suggests (I think) using a piece of homasote… Wipe some of the polish onto the piece of homasote and begin rubbing the rails. The surface of the homasote will turn pitch black… I then went an extra step and wiped it off with a clean chunk of homasote… I don’t know if the extra step is necassary or even wise but it did pick up any light deposits on the sides of the rail head.
See the thread here for the test I’ve been doing in the last couple weeks. To add to the text in the thread, as of last night, 10 seconds per tie… Read the thread and you’ll know what that means.
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=54138
Good luck,
Jeff
I used never dull to polish brass in the Navy. It seemed to leave a weird film on the metal. I don’t know how that would work for track…good film/bad film??
It polishes well so I would be interested in hearing if anyone has used it.
I am afraid of using anything that leaves a film on the rails. Had that experience with the Wahl hair clipper oil. It worked but the build up on the car wheels was unbelievable!
Also Brasso leaves an oily film on the metal surface as does some Chrome polish.
You do not want anything but dry for the rails.
And I use old HO cork roadbed to apply the polish. I was having too many problems with the Homasote as it would deposit little bits of fuzz as it began to breakdown!
BOB H – Clarion, PA