De-rusting and Cleaning Tinplate Track; - advice sought.

[Annie]

I've been liberating my 'O' tinplate collection from where it has been stored for far too long.  Unbeknown to me the lockup garage where everything has been stored leaks like a sieve when it rains so much of my collection ended up being exposed to water.  Fortunately most of the really important items were in lidded plastic storage containers so very little harm was done.  Other things were in cardboard boxes which I'd fortunately lined with a double layer of heavy duty black plastic rubbish sacks so while the boxes looked terrible and were crumbling the contents were largely fine. But one box containing Hornby clockwork track didn't have a liner and why I didn't do this I really don't know, - and some of the track has suffered badly.  To my surprise though quite a lot of it while plainly damp is fine and just needs drying off, - plainly they used good quality steel back then, - but it's the items that were more to the bottom of the box where it was sitting on the concrete floor that have suffered most.  Some pieces are just too far gone with pieces of wet cardboard rusted on to them, but other pieces of track might be Ok if I could kill the rust and clean them up.

 

Any advice would be very gratefully received.  

[kernowtim]

Best bet would be sandblasting to get rid of the rust then painting with suitable paints, cheaper option would be using a wire brush or wire wool then maybe a rust eater like jenolite before painting.you may however finish up with lots of holes if it has got very rusty!!

[Annie]

Anything with holes will get binned as I'm not quite that desperate.  It's mostly the track that is sound, but has suffered some rusting that I'm concerned about.  What you've suggested is quite doable though.  I live in the very rural countryside so anyone doing sandblasting is many many miles away, but wire wool and or a wire brush followed by Jenolite and painting sounds about the level of technology I have access to.  

 

Thank you for your reply.

[bigherb]

The easiest method is to soak in white vinegar (some added salt makes it more effective) depending on how rusty it is the longer it needs, scrub with a nail brush or similar periodically to see how much has been removed. Wash with bicarbonate of soda or just plenty of clean water. Dry immediately with a hair drier to stop tarnishing (if you have an airline blow the excess water off first), then spray with a clear laquer. Plenty of advice about it on the web.

[chriswright03]

Might have a go at that myself then as we have quite a bit of it.  Mind you the thing is with the clockwork stuff it still runs anyway as it isn't quite as finicky as my DCC stuff.

[Annie]

Thanks very much for the white vinegar tip bigherb.  Sounds much better and cheaper than trying to source some Jenolite  

 

True enough Chris, clockwork locos don't really care what the track is like, but should I want to do an electric conversion later by installing a brazing rod centre conductor it would be best if I've got the track as good as I can get it to be.

[kevinlms]

I've been liberating my 'O' tinplate collection from where it has been stored for far too long.  Unbeknown to me the lockup garage where everything has been stored leaks like a sieve when it rains so much of my collection ended up being exposed to water.  Fortunately most of the really important items were in lidded plastic storage containers so very little harm was done.  Other things were in cardboard boxes which I'd fortunately lined with a double layer of heavy duty black plastic rubbish sacks so while the boxes looked terrible and were crumbling the contents were largely fine. But one box containing Hornby clockwork track didn't have a liner and why I didn't do this I really don't know, - and some of the track has suffered badly.  To my surprise though quite a lot of it while plainly damp is fine and just needs drying off, - plainly they used good quality steel back then, - but it's the items that were more to the bottom of the box where it was sitting on the concrete floor that have suffered most.  Some pieces are just too far gone with pieces of wet cardboard rusted on to them, but other pieces of track might be Ok if I could kill the rust and clean them up.

 

Any advice would be very gratefully received.  

Cleaning rust off the track - is that the task that WD40 and similar, is actually intended for?

[Annie]

Not really sure about that as I'd want something that chemically kills the rust and can be then cleaned and dried off rather than leave any kind of oily residue.

[NCB]

Would avoid a wire-brush; it could damage the tinplate further and create problems for the future. A soft brush as bigherb suggests is OK.

[Il Grifone]

A brass brush should be OK, but it would be a lot of graft....

 

For small jobs I use a rotary brush in a mini drill (watch out for bits of flying brass - googles advised), but I think Hornby track might be a bit too much for this method.

[Nearholmer]

A bath in a solution of molasses, by process called chelation.

 

Far less damaging than abrasion or acid attack.

 

There are plenty of videos on YouTube showing how effective molasses is as a rust remover; it’s like magic!

 

Kevin

[NCB]

Diet Coke is good at brightening up tarnished etchings; don't know if it would work in this instance though. Essentially, phosphoric acid.

[Annie]

Thanks for that Kevin.  I'd forgotten about molasses.  The thought of handling gooey trackwork in the aftermath and cleaning it off is a bit daunting though  

 

NCB, as far as I know Jenolite is based on phosphoric acid so I suppose it's not surprising that Coke removes tarnishing.

[peterfgf]

Diet Coke is good at brightening up tarnished etchings; don't know if it would work in this instance though. Essentially, phosphoric acid.

 

Agree.  Coke is surprising stuff.  I've used a can of it to examine a manganese bronze propeller for weld repairs.  It works very well.  Good job stomach linings are made of strong stuff.

 

Rust looks a lot worse than it really is. I can't remember the figures, but the volume of rust is something like 50 times the volume of steel which has been oxidised.  General rusting isn't too bad, deep pitting is the worst to deal with.

 

I would wire brush to remove the rust and any loose paint, passivate the exposed structure (I've used Kurust in the past, but I think Jenolite is the same, and acid followed by neutralisation with an alakali ought to work)., and protect the surface with paint.  Rusting of exposed steel should be negligible is a warm, DRY indoor environment, but I wouldn't bet on it, and I would paint it - three coats at least: primer to ensure adhesion, undercoat for build up/ thickness of protection, and gloss to seal it and prevent water ingress.  Single coats of paint always leave small holes somewhere for water to penetrate.  Don't go anywhere near the "one coat" variety - they area compromise in all the different properties needed.  Two-part epoxies are the ultimate (ships' ballast tanks and the Forth bridge) but I've never seen them for sale in domestic quantities.  End of advertisement for paint makers ( who say that the steel work is only there to hold their paint up).

 

Peterfgf

[Nearholmer]

Molasses solution is dead-easy to remove: run the item under the tap, while gently scrubbing with a washing-up brush.

 

Don’t be too afraid of washing steel things in water, provided you dry them swiftly thereafter.

 

On the basis of good advice from a true expert, I boiled an old clockwork mechanism in a pan of water on the stove, then dried it with a hairdryer (wife out at a PTA meeting!). Best and quickest way of restoring it to vigour.

 

I’d be a lot more afraid of all the corrosive methods being suggested, especially fizzy pop, which is as potentially sticky as molasses, and corrosive. Any residue left after chelation will be chemically inert.

[AdamsRadial]

I have used Molasses very successfully, but after washing it off you have to dry and then treat the rail at once, it will rust within the hour if there's the slightest moisture in the air. The same goes for vinegar, and another excellent de-ruster : Oxalic acid. (The stuff which when you pick Daffodils on the farms forms nasty painful crystals in your fingertips and you pay the gang-leaders to dip your hands in a bucket of mild alkaline solution to ease the pain).

 

If you don't mind the chemicals, you could try electroplating the rail after the chelation stage. I've done some with nickel-plating, and I have a zinc electroplate kit I haven't tried yet.

 

Another de-rust method is electrolytic, which also removes the paint from painted tinplate in the blink of an eye. (Well, almost).

[Annie]

You've put me off picking daffodils forever.   I didn't know they fought back  

 

Electrickery techniques for removing rust as well as electroplating might be a step too far for me; - though I do remember a HRCA member in the local group I used to belong to doing this.  Ordinary paint might just have to suffice for my efforts.

[Il Grifone]

The metal has to be really clean for electro-plating to work properly, but it is the only real solution, however, as wheels will wear off any paint quite quickly I would think

 

I have tried cola in the past, but only got a sticky mess with no sign of any rust removal. The same goes for a saturated solution of sugar I tried (probably yet more Grifone incompetence!).

 

Stomach acid is hydrochloric, so phosphoric acid is no problem. The sugar and other crud in cola might be though....

[brianusa]

Before I built the current layout around twenty years ago, I put all the old track including points in the dishwasher.  Ran the complete cycle and then put it all in the oven to make sure it was all dry. Cleaned up well although bits of the black paint on the sleepers came off; easily paintable if it bothers you.  Been working ever since!

 

Brian.