Cleaning plastic track?

[Fletch3]

Thinking of putting together an AFX track in the race room. A buddy gave me a box full of track but the tabs have some build up on them. I’m assuming it’s di-electric grease with years of built up crud from all the years of racing on it. My question is what’s the best way to clean the entire piece of track? A friend said throw it in the sink and wash it up. Any suggestions would be appropriated.

[Fletch3]

No one has ever cleaned tomy track?

[ourwayband]

Well,may not be the way to do it but we used WD40..
Seems to work well for us..
Rusty H

[noddaz]

I have used a wire brush on a Dremel for the metal tabs. But a emery board would work also. The di-electric grease is used for the re-assembly on the tabs. After the track is assembled I have used glass cleaner to clean the track, followed up with WD-40 on a towel to reduce corrosion of the rails. I also use a scotch brite to clean the surface of the rails before use. You can slow down the corrosion, but you cannot stop it.
Clean track, run scotch brite around, wipe down with WD-40, race, wipe down with WD-40. Repeat. :lol:

Scott

[oceanview]

Hi,
Over the past 30 years I have always taken all my real dirty Tomy , Tyco and AFX track into the empty sink with the tap running and used a SOS Pad and
cleaned all surfaces (rails and track surface) and then rinsed all the blueish soap etc off under the tap. Never ever had a problem with the SOS Pad particles EVER , so no they did not get caught in any of the hundreds of HO cars run on the track afterwards.
After washing drip dry all the pieces in the dish rack , explain to wife that it is only clean plastic like plastic plate! After the track pieces are dry you may see "rubs and/or scratches" depending how hard you cleaned. I then take my 1 : 1 scale "TIRE BRITE" , you know- it makes your tires shiny, usually a whitish liquid (not ARMOR ALL) and wipe all the pieces down. The scratches disappear.You end up with "BRAND NEW" looking clean track , works every time!

[RichD]

When you spoke of cleaning the track I suppose that you mostly meant cleaning the rails. By the way dielectric means insulating. The value of dieletric grease is that it keeps the electrical contacts between the track sections from corroding. Regular plastic tracks have a lot of joints and each one of those is a potential source of trouble. Even if each joint is nearly perfect after you add up the voltage drop across a few dozen of them you can have significant loss. Since your track was treated the connections may be free of corrosion and only cleaning to remove excess grease might be needed. If it was me I would check to see if the joints needed cleaning. I would do that by connecting all of the track sections, they don't have to make an actual layout. Track should only be connected to one side of the power strip. I would put a car with the rear axle assembly removed on the last section to act as a load and punch the controller for that lane. I would the measure the voltage at the power strip and at the last section. If the voltage on the last section was within a volt of the voltage at the power section I would be good to go. If the voltage drop was excessive then cleaning of the contacts would be necessary. I would never use anything with water in it to clean the track. For a start a water based cleaner would not be very effective in removing the dielectric grease, which is likely to be silicone based. I would use a plastic safe electrical contact cleaner on the joints first. A Dremel with a wire brush will do a good job of removing corrosion from the exposed contacts, but it won't be able to do the others. The other half of each joint will have to be polished with fine sand paper. Once the joints were cleaned I could apply dielectric grease before the sections were assembled in their final configuration, however since I never use water on a track the grease would probably not be necessary. I avoid using water because water promotes rust. If you use a minimal amount of spray surface cleaner on the track when it is not too humid and wipe that off promptly you would not be likely to have corrosion problems, but why take a chance on that? If your track is in a dry location you would have less problems with corrosion. I have a dehumidifier in my basement.
If you want to clean the surface of the track the best thing to use is WD-40. Do not spray WD-40 directly on the track, spray some on a rag and wipe down the track with that. The WD-40 will remove grease, oil and dust leaving the track looking like new, it also contains a rust inhibitor. You will probably need to polish the track rails from time to time, avoid using a coarse sandpaper, that will scratch up the rails and a scratched surface will corrode faster. I use foam fingernail buffing blocks from the cosmetic section of a drug store or from a beauty supply store. If you use your track a lot it the rails will not need cleaning very often, you tend to have more of a problem with a track that stands idle for long periods of time.

[model murdering]

Tab cleaning?

Stack your pieces into manageable piles, and slap one of those purple produce rubber bands around the stack. Hose the ends down with WD and let it eat.

Spark up the dremel with a steel wire wheel. Be mindful of the rotation and use only the speed you need, not 40,000 rpm! Wear a glove on your off hand for skip offs. I like to sit down, and then blip the tabs .... doink doink doink ... and shoot the grungous away from me. Hose the ends of the stacks off with CRC or plastic safe contact cleaner. Blow off with air.

Next stack.

Rail cleaning? Got a pic of how bad?

Good luck!

Bill

[waaytoomuchintothis]

The best thing I ever saw for any kind of track contact is Rail-Zip. Goes a long way, too. I still have my first bottle from over 20 years ago.

[RichD]

I have some Rail-Zip, it may help to prevent corrosion but I am not convinced that it will remove corrosion that is already there. Hobby shops that do model trains usually have Rail-Zip, so you might give it a try. Rail-Zip includes a dye, if your track has painted on lane markings they may get discolored.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

There must have been a change since I bought mine. Its crystal clear like water. But I use it when the contacts get dull, not when they have been abused with gunk. The whole truth is, my plastic track is sealed in plastic bags in boxes and stashed safe and sound. If I get it out, I will use Rail-Zip and go racin'.

[Half Fast Slotter]

Model train stores sell a track rail cleaning eraser. It is a little more abrasive material than the old 'ink' erasers. It makes rails bright and is flexible enough to get the top and some of the sides too. Downside is it will inevitably leave some eraser crumbs, so best if done before installing the track. If done after you will probably need a Swiffer cloth or one of the liquid cleaners above. I just used the Swiffer cloth/pad on my HO race track.
jeff

[Fletch3]

WD40 huh? Never would have guessed that, figured it would leave is greasy. I’ll try it and the wire brush on the rail ends.

[noddaz]