Last night Doug came over and he got the last of his chips installed. While he was working on them, I continued cleaning the layout up for hopefully another Op Session.
To date, all the tracks are cleaned except the 8 staging tracks for the through trains. I still need to clean off the boxes and other minimal crap that's sitting on the workbench layout from small projects and eBay sales.
After reading a thread on N Scale.net about what is a good cleaning fluid to use for cleaning the rails, one poster mentioned No-Ox and another said he nixed No-Ox in favor of using a 4B Graphite stick. I picked up a few off of eBay to give them a try. He said that it helps with the conductivity of the rails so I thought I'd give it a try this time.
I've used a bit of it the other night while screwing around with the S2's. One issue I seen already, and kind of figured on, was it may reduce tractive efforts if too much was applied. In the last video I posted showing the single S2 pulling twelve cars it started to slip. I think was due to the fact I had applied a bit too much, but I took care of it with a quick swipe of a clothe. Last night I went around to specific areas and applied a bit more and then ran some trains to help spread it out. So we'll see how well it works.
As for the troublesome S2, it's fixed and I've ran it to break it in good, so it will used to switch out Malvern this session. Have a sneaking suspicion there may be a fight to see who's gonna pull the Razorback trick, gonna get some popcorn ready!
Other than that, that's about all for now....
Hi Allen.
ReplyDeleteFor many many years myself and several mates have very successfully used good old lighter fluid to clean our tracks(purchased from a barber shop). A piece of lint free cloth wrapped around a small piece of 2 x1 and away you go. We use it to clean all of our Loco wheels by laying it across a powered track on full bore soak the cloth and one set of truck at a time. boy does it work good. Make sure the cloth is very light otherwise the cloth does not get right into the corner of the wheels as it is too bulky. Ha ask me how I know. Give it a try you will be amazed how good it works. Lisa should know what cloth to purchase.
Have fun young fella.
Rod.
Thanks Rod!
DeleteWhat we've always used was a cheap paper towel, napkin or a coffee filter laid across the rails and soaked it with 70% alcohol. I can see where lighter fluid would work as well, as its what mother use to use to remove gum from my hair when I was little brat and would fall asleep with gum in my mouth, but that's for another story. LOL
How does the oil in the fluid react on the rails and wheels? Does it make it slippery at all? I've also read where others have used Naptha gas (or White Gas) which also has an oily residue.
Allen - I'm one of the 'mates' Rod mentioned, and I use lighter fluid (naptha) just as Rod describes. It dries quite quickly, and (as far as I can tell) doesn't leave an oily residue at all.
DeleteI also squirt a small amount on an old toothbrush to clean the point blades on my Peco turnouts (which rely on contact between the points and stock rail for conductivity.)
I've also used IPA in the same way, but I prefer lighter fluid. The IPA evaporates too quickly, IMO.
Regards,
Ron
Thanks Ron, I will keep this in mind.
DeleteGraphite? I'll be interested to see how that works out. Considering that graphite's used as a dry lubricant, I have the same reservations as you've expressed in regard to slipping.
ReplyDeleteI can understand the reasoning behind applying liquids to the rails, as surface tension may cause a small fillet of conductive liquid to form where the wheel touches the rail, thereby increasing the electrical contact. But I can't see a powder doing that. Please keep us informed.
Regards,
Ron
I couldn't agree more Ron! That's why I want to give it a shot and see what happens. I will do just that once I get through a couple of sessions.
DeleteHere's a link that was posted on and N Scale.net thread where I first read about it. It's actually a link to a MRH thread, which is quite lengthy but a good read.
http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/17181 [copy and paste it]
Here is a snippet from the NSN thread from Paul who mentioned it:
"It's the micro-arcing between the rails and the locomotive wheels that creates most of the black crud we see on nickel-silver rail. The graphite, being a conductor, almost eliminates this problem."
Makes sense, so we shall see?