I am running into a problem, maybe someone could help. I am in the process of weathering my N scale track and ties. I used my badger airbrush with rail brown. I Sprayed both sides of the track , and then went over the top of the rails with modelflex cleaner on a rag to clean up. Everything looks clean, but when I try to run my Loco, it sputters around. I tried a bright boy to help clean more but all it did was strip the paint off the sides when I kept rubbing back and fourth!!! Anyone have any suggestions how I can get the track clean enough without ruining the paint job? Also I painted over the rail joiners and the terminal connections, is this ok? Thanks Mike
Welcome aboard!!! It's good to have you here, and you've come to the right place. I let mine dry, and with a heavy-duty rubber chemical-resistant glove, I use a lacquer thinner moistened paper towel, or rag, and wipe the railheads. After that, same gloved hand, moisten a rag with 91% isopropyl alcohol, wipe again. That should help! Also, I painted over all that stuff, too, but my joiners are only to keep the rails in alignment, and connected. The feeders I solder under the rails give my track the juice.
I used some Apple Barrel water-based paint on mine through a couple less-than-ideal Testors airbrushes, and it turned out pretty well. After the paint dried, I just went over the top of the rail with my fingernail and scraped it off. The paint on the side remained. I've used a Bright Boy on it as well, however, I didn't put a ton of pressure on it, and there are no grooves in it, so it was able to just clean the top of the rail. Also, I've used a Centerline track cleaning car with Goo Gone and it didn't take the paint off. Good luck, and keep experimenting!
Mike- You mention painting over rail joiners and terminal connections. But didn't mention whether or not your rail joints were soldered? If not, it may be a possibility some paint got in there, and is causing at least part of the problem. Boxcab E50
No I did not solder the joints, this is my first "real" layout and I thought I could get around it. Maybe this is the problem. I'll take a closer look at it. Mike
I am using gun-blue to weather the Rails on my N-Scale Layout. It works good, but on the Switches you have to be very careful!!!! Otherwise you have bad electric contact!!!
A couple of ideas here. Did you check your wheels on your engine? Could they be dirty from picking up paint from the rails, maybe the wheels picked up some of the stuff the Bright Boy rubbed off? You might get a track cleaner car. There are several sold on the market, and it is not hard to make your own car either. You have learned what it took me a while to figure out. Don't paint your rails untill you are sure that everything on the track work is okay.
If you used a bright boy, you shouldn't be having any problems. I'm wondering if other factors are at work as others have suggested. Once the rail is clean (and that is easy to see) you should have rail to wheel contact, so sputtering shouldn't be an issue. How are your feeders, how many do you have? These are the questions going on in my head.
The layout is 3'x6'. It is basically a modified double loop. I have about 8 feeders on the layout, that should be enough? I finally got it to work. But with all the cleaning of the track I started to rub off some paint on the sides of the rails, now I have to go back and try and touch that up.
Best of luck to you! Good to hear you got 'er running again. I will be going DCC in the future, and my layout is wired as such: feeders on every piece of track longer than 5", and in between turnout ladders. Granted this is almost required for DCC, it is overkill for conventional operation. But it never hurts.
