Paint and TRack

Hi all I have been painting my track over the last few months, first by hand, and the by aerosol, from the local model store "Floquil Rail Brown". I am using Peco Code 100 nickel silver track. Problem is, doesn't to seem to matter how often I clean the top of the track, it becomes the same color as the sides after a few days, seems like its tarnished. Any ideas? Rob

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How did you clean the track? If you used sandpaper or files, you've probably ruined your track (sorry to tell you that).
I thought I was being bright when I attached 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper to a rubber block and cleaned my whole layout.
The trains ran great for a few days until dirt accumulated in the scratches and grooves left by the sandpaper. I could still run my trains - I just had to live with re-cleaning my whole layout every time I wanted to run trains.
Still, I may be wrong - I'm in N scale where electrical contact on the rails is a touchy issue. In HO you *may* be OK, but I suspect not.
Good luck! -- Just my 2¢... 73 es gd dx de Ken KGØWX Grid EM17ip, Flying Pigs #-1055 Proud builder & owner of Elecraft K2 #4913

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No I used track rubbers

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Whew! You had me worried there. I'd keep cleaning, then.
-- Just my 2¢... 73 es gd dx de Ken KGØWX Grid EM17ip, Flying Pigs #-1055 Proud builder & owner of Elecraft K2 #4913

Rob Kemp wrote:
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Some tarnishing is to be expected, and so long as it doesn't interfere with electrical contact, it's not a problem.
But you have damaged the rail surfaces. Track rubbers or erasers have grit in them - they too scratch the rail surface. But all is not lost. Just don't use the track eraser ever again.
Clean the track with a fluid rail cleaner. TV contact cleaner is good, and non-solvent citrus-based cleaners are good, too. Avoid strong solvents - they are bad for your lungs, kidneys, brains and other delicate parts, as well as for plastics on the railroad itself. If you have a track cleaning car, use that, otherwise you'll just have to use a piece of lint-free cloth (old cotton rags are good) wrapped around your index finger. After cleaning, go over the track once more with a dry cloth. It should come up clean (or nearly so). If it doesn't repeat the cleaning. Then put a drop of contact cleaner or Aero-car's Conducta-lube on each rail every six feet or so, and run a loco with _clean_ wheels around the track.
BTW, to slow down build up of dirt and gunk on the rail, do not smoke in the train room, keep it as dust free as possible, and clean the wheels on all your rolling stock. You will find that plastic wheels pick up gunk faster than metal ones, so I would start a program of replacing all plastic wheel sets with metal ones. Werighting the cars according to NMRA recommended practices also helps. Run the track cleaning car around the layout every week or so.
HTH&GL

Make up some masonite blocks to ride under some cars on the track. This will tend to polish out the grooves that you made with the track cleaning abrasive blocks. In N scale, you may need to use a loco and the car to clean the tracks again but eventually the tarnish will be less. You may also want to use some light oil on the tracks to protect the clean rail from the air but this also tends to slightly decrease the tractive effort of a loco but will work well for keeping the tracks clean. Finally, putting contact shoes (phosphor bronse prefereably) on the locos will also improve the contacts of the locos and also polish the railheads. Again, you lose a bit of tractive effort but you do gain a lot in reliability. The shoes don't need to press hard on the rails for the effect to work well.
-- Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

Another cleaning option is to buy some "Flitz" metal polish from their website (or where ever else it is sold). This stuff chemically cleans metal and leaves a corrosion inhibitor behind. I've used the stuff on HO rails and it WORKS. There was a short article a year or so ago in Model Railroader as well in which the reviewer liked it as well.
Flitz is NON-TOXIC! It is approved for use in food service so the various cautions when using other solvent metal polishes don't apply. If you have managed to scratch your track with an eraser cleaner (I have, too), then Flitz will clean the track nicely, inhibit corrosion for about 6 months, and not affect electrical conductivity other than to make it better.
Ed
in article snipped-for-privacy@news-1.nethere.net, Bob May at snipped-for-privacy@nethere.com wrote on 6/25/05 10:56 PM:
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Another cleaning option is to buy some "Flitz" metal polish from their website (or where ever else it is sold). <snips>
Ed
```````` Also available at Mircro-Mark:
http://tinyurl.com/csczu
Hope this helps . . .
"Paul - The CB&Q Guy" (Modeling 1969 In HO.)

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Does it affect operations, or just appearance?