It’s been about 4 months since I have paid any attention to my home layout, and it is covered in dust… I have been wiping solid areas, and structures down with a damp sponge, vaccuming earthed, and textured areas, and brushing delicated areas, or objects. I am now trying to figure out how to clean the trees. Some trees are out-of-the-box, which are pretty tolerant to the vaccum cleaner (with brush attached), but some trees are made of lichen, or foliage sprinkled over matte medium, which I won’t dare near with a vac, and brushing isn’t much help.
I was wondering how everyone keeps the dust off of their layout, especially trees and such?
I posted this information several months back and will post it again. I had the same problem and found a great product at Michael’s Craft Store. It is called “Silk 'n Splendor” silk plant treatment. It comes in a spray bottle like window cleaner and it’s made to clean dust and grease off of artificial silk plants and flowers. I’ve been using it on the trees and shrubs on my layout for a couple of years and it’s great. It costs about $4.99 for a 24 oz. bottle and I was able to do my whole layout twice in a 2-year period.
The trick is to spray the top of the tree or shrub just till the point where the liquid starts to run down the object. In other words, don’t spray too much. This product lifts the dust and grease off the most delicate trees and causes it to run down to the base where it disappears. It really brightens the foliage and doesn’t affect the colors. Think about it…it was created to clean delicate artificial flowers and leaves made of silk and other delicate materials.
Be sure to place a piece of cardboard behind the area you’re spraying to prevent overspray from hitting your backdrop or any other item you don’t want to touch.
One question people had asked me before is whether the liquid run-off at the base of the tree causes any harm, like loosening the glue holding the trees in place. I haven’t had any problems but again, I try to spray just enough to the point of runoff.
I wipe off what I can, and the rest is used for weathering. It’s a pain in the neck to clean N scale stuff! I do occasionally pull the engines apart and clean and tune them. The most important thing for me if I haven’t used my layout in a bit is making sure the tracks and running gear are clean.
There is a use for those cans of compressed air but for the trees, I think you’ll find my suggestion useful. Also, when you blow dust off, it just goes somewhere else on the layout unless you’re real good at “catching” it in a vacuum cleaner.
I’ve got a small “Dustbuster” that works well. Its not powerful enough to suck up anything big but does clean up dust well. I cover my layout when I know I won’t be working on it for long periods, basically the summer and fall months.
I happened to be in the local HARBOR FREIGHT store yesterday and found a"mini-vacuum attachments package that contains several “pieces that ssimply attach to a regular shop vac by means of an 'adapter” attachmnet.
So I bought it, I think it was about 10 dollars.Looked like it could get into tight hard to reach spots.
It has an oval brush, round brush, and crevice tool and several extension pipes.
If you are often away from your layout for a few months, it may be a good idea to cover it with a lightweight plastic drop cloth. These should be available in the paint section of your local hardware store. I did this on my layout when I was working overseas, but it did not stop damage by mice and chipmunks who got in the house while we were gone. The next year, I added a few handfuls fo mothballs under the dropcloth - particulalry in the ‘favorite’ areas. That helped some.