A small whinge

[ejstubbs]

On 24/08/2023 at 15:07, micklner said:

White Spirit aka Turps, will leave everything greasy to the touch.

 

White Spirit is a turpentine substitute.  It's much cheaper than turpentine (around £4 a litre on Amazon vs ~£20 a litre for turpentine) and you can use it as a solvent for many of the same kind of jobs for which you might otherwise use turpentine - probably the most common one being cleaning paintbrushes.  Turpentine is derived from plant resin, and has a very different chemical composition to white spirit.

 

The term "white spirit" encompasses a number of different grades of napthta-based solvents.  White spirit sold as such in the UK has to comply with British Standard BS 245 which specifies "Not more than 5 mg per 100 ml" of residue on evaporation (which might still be enough to be problematic on model railway track).  Products sold as simply "turpentine substitute" don't have to meet that standard, and typically contain a higher proportion of less volatile components which are more prone to leaving an oily residue.

[ejstubbs]

On 20/08/2023 at 13:57, woodenhead said:

Ok, so what do you use?

 

IPA - which is also present in WD40 Contact Cleaner, as I pointed out in my post.  My point being that the guy in the video spent a lot of time propounding some dubious arguments as to why IPA is a bad thing to use - and then went on to suggest that a product which does actually contain IPA is OK to use.  In other words, I was highlighting a hole in his argument.  I wasn't trying to suggest that WD40 Contact Cleaner is a bad product to use.

[melmerby]

On 24/08/2023 at 15:36, Colin_McLeod said:

Perhaps it had been a sample model  reviewed on You Tube !!  😉

Sam's Trains?

[PMP]

On 20/08/2023 at 13:57, woodenhead said:

@ejstubbs Ok, so what do you use?

 

I got that video recommended to me on a seperate topic about cleaning my locos and track, but I am not alone in seeing benefits from using WD40 Contact Cleaner.

 

Personally I wish I did not need to think about the track/wheel interface and it was all batteries, but in N thats not a simple option.

There’s another youtube video I’ve seen that proclaims all sorts of bad things about IPA as a track cleaner, which in my experience is BS in practical terms. I’ve not used electrical contact cleaners but see the logic in trying them.

At exhibition and at home I tend to use either IPA, a mechanical rubber (Peco), fine abrasive paper or a solvent like Mek or Cellulose/enamel thinners. I can guarantee any of them will trigger a track cleaning nerd when they see them used, the type and application method makes a big difference to the effectivity too.

For N I use Tamiya cotton swabs as you can apply your weapon of choice accurately and get good results. I’ve a CMX Ho track cleaner wagon which didn’t give any improvement over the above despite many favourable comments about them. I can see their benefits on a large layout so long as your track details are clear of the contact pads, but on my layouts so far no benefit of note.

 

The important thing though is that the methods work consistently as anyone who has seen or operated one of my layouts knows. That always confounds a layoutside expert, when they see them , but it works.

Edited August 26, 2023 by PMP
Clarify

[woodenhead]

@PMP There's no single right way to clean track, that, I recognise.

 

Everyone will have their combination of solutions that works for them in their environment.

 

 

[Hroth]

I've not had any problems with IPA with a track cleaner.  Perhaps some critics are using the wrong liquid, India Pale Ale might not work as well....

 

[Pacific231G]

12 hours ago, PMP said:

At exhibition and at home I tend to use either IPA, a mechanical rubber (Peco), fine abrasive paper or a solvent like Mek or Cellulose/enamel thinners. I can guarantee any of them will trigger a track cleaning nerd when they see them used, the type and application method makes a big difference to the effectivity too.

For N I use Tamiya cotton swabs as you can apply your weapon of choice accurately and get good results. I’ve a CMX Ho track cleaner wagon which didn’t give any improvement over the above despite many favourable comments about them. I can see their benefits on a large layout so long as your track details are clear of the contact pads, but on my layouts so far no benefit of note.

 

for my H0 (Peco) and H0m (Tillig) layouts I've found the Peco track rubber to be a bit abrasive but the track rubbers sold by the Double O Gauge Association (I'm not a member) seem far better in that regard. For the Dartmoor and Valley Scenes, Pendon uses specially built bogie wagons  with a small rectangle of hardboard rough side side down mounted on a weighted carriage. However, the scenes there are behind glass so won't be subject to the usual household dust. For cleaning behind point blades etc. I generally use cotton buds with IPA. 

Edited August 26, 2023 by Pacific231G

[Torper]

There are several semi-scientific videos and articles which state that non-polar cleaners are more effective than polar ones.  In this context, "polar" refers to a substance's molecular polarity.  Kerosene, WD40 Contact Cleaner and mineral spirits are cited as effective non-polar ones, while IPA is clearly polar.  This doesn't mean that polar cleaners won't clean your track - of course many of them will.  The difference as I understand it is that if you use non-polar cleaners your track will stay clean for longer.

 

If you can open it, this article explains a lot - https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/mrhpub.com/2019-05-may/online/index.html?page=9 .  I say "if you can open it" because I could only do so using Tor browser and I suspect it may be closed to UK users.  It's an article by Joe Fugate in the May 2019 Model Railway Hobbyist and he says that a large San Diego model railway club used to run trains on their extensive layout between 8 to 12 hours a day and they were using IPA to clean the track and wheels. Much to their dismay they found that the harder they cleaned things the quicker black gunk would build up again and after some experimentation they found that cleaning track with mineral spirits (white spirit) kept it clean for longer.  Analysis found that the black gunk was largely metal oxides formed by microarcing between the wheels and the rail.  After some research and discussion with a chemical expert Fugate found that non-polar solvents worked best to both clean the electrical contacts and inhibit microarcing and that solvents to avoid included IPA, MEK, acetone, and laquer thinner which, while they might well do a good job of initial cleaning, actually encourage the formation of new oxides and therefore gunk on the metal surfaces in electrical contact.  Non-polar solvents, on the other hand, inhibit it.  Graphite, incidentally, is also non-polar, but only if applied very thinly.

 

Anyway, you pay your money, you take your choice.

[TEAMYAKIMA]

I remember the long-departed Gerry Veit ranting about the PECO track rubber 50 years ago. I must admit that I use the PECO track cleaner quite a lot - but I always then rub a dry paper towel over the rack as well.  The track rubber more loosens the dirt than fully removes it and the paper towel follows up and removes the remnants.

[Jol Wilkinson]

The Peco Track cleaner is far too course and aggressive, leaving score marks that hold dirt. Far better in my experience is this from Hobby Holidays.

 

https://www.hobbyholidays.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=TRACKRUBBER

 

On my 4mm exhibition layout a light clean with that, followed by a wipe with cigarette lighter fluid at the beginning of the day, provided trouble free running in what were generally  regarded as "dirty" environments. The lighter fluid was applied to cotton cloth (a piece of an old handkerchief ( wrapped around the end of a 1-1/2" foam hairbrush) which could be quickly and safely wiped along the track.

[Steamport Southport]

Ah WD40!

 

Has it's uses....

 

[stewartingram]

Not with me it doesn't!! Biggest bodger's tool around.

[96701]

I use it for cleaning the exterior Upvc window frames and sills. It's quite good at that.

[SZ]

I have a small whinge.

[cctransuk]

5 minutes ago, SZ said:

I have a small whinge.

 

They can do wonders with modern medicine! 😀

 

CJI.

[kevinlms]

10 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

They can do wonders with modern medicine! 😀

 

CJI.

I keep thinking Chris Leigh is answering!

 

How about that for a whinge, for copying someone else's initials?