General Wheel Cleaning

[jbrock27]

Thanks for getting back to me Roger and thanks for the info keystone and JNXT 7707.

[Joe Baldwin]

Regarding Acetone, I said a friend uses it in his CMX car and has great success with it. I've never tried it myself but see absolutely no issue with it. Putting it on a rag is VERY different from pouring it in a tank and letting it drip onto the track.  However I'll remind everyone that Acetone, after all is fingernail polish remover.

Joe

[Doneldon]

I used Carbon Tek for years to clean track. I've used Acetone for at least 5 years, no  problem. I put small amounts on a rag and wipe. The Acetone evaperates fast. I've never seen any damaged plastic.
Joe

Joe-

You are very lucky. Even the tiniest bit of acetone wil mar plastic. Heck, even acetone fumes will craze
plastic. Just think of some of the unintentionally frosty model windows you have seen. I, personally, would
never use acetone near track, especially since there are so many alternatives which work well but pose no
risk of damage.
                           -- D

[rogertra]

Regarding Acetone, I said a friend uses it in his CMX car and has great success with it. I've never tried it myself but see absolutely no issue with it. Putting it on a rag is VERY different from pouring it in a tank and letting it drip onto the track.  However I'll remind everyone that Acetone, after all is fingernail polish remover.

Joe

And is one of the very few chemicals that will release alpha-cyano acrylate (sp), aka AC or Crazy Glue et al.

Nail polish remover is a good standby at home if you glue your fingers together.

[jbrock27]

J.D., when you say VERY different, do you mean in a good way or a bad way?

[jbrock27]

As an experiment, I took an old 9" straight section of brass Feller/Garnet track and Atlas brass rerailer with black plastic roadbed and put a little nail polish remover (acetone) nice lemon scent  on cotton rag and used it to wipe the tops of the rails down. Nothing melted, deformed or blew up.  To me, it did not clean any better than a cleaning block or Wahl clipper oil.
But, if the nail polish remover proved to be cheaper than the bottled track cleaner fluid, I would likely use it in a tank type cleaning car and not be concerned.   
Just my observations and thoughts.

[Joe Baldwin]

J.D., when you say VERY different, do you mean in a good way or a bad way?

IF acetone were harmful to human beings, putting it on a rag with your finger behind it would expose your body part with direct contact for as long as you are cleaning the track which could be hours.  On the other hand, pouring it into the CMX tank exposes one to some fumes for a few seconds and unless you spill it on yourself, there is no bodily contact.

Now, if acetone is in anyway harmful to humans ingestion excepted, I'd be amazed that would be available without a permit.

Just my 2 cents.

Joe D

[HOART]

Thanks one and all for all the comments .However , the comments have gone more or less to general track cleaning.My original comment was directed to solving the problem of cleaning the wheels on a Bachmann Spectrum Peter Witt street car .The car is extra low to the rails which makes cleaning the wheels difficult .DCC seems to create dirt quicker than on DC .My posts regarding this is what I continue doing . Enjoy the hobby ! Art

[rogertra]

Thanks one and all for all the comments .However , the comments have gone more or less to general track cleaning.My original comment was directed to solving the problem of cleaning the wheels on a Bachmann Spectrum Peter Witt street car .The car is extra low to the rails which makes cleaning the wheels difficult .DCC seems to create dirt quicker than on DC .My posts regarding this is what I continue doing . Enjoy the hobby ! Art

We have covered this.

To clean wheels on ALL powered equipment, you simply dampen a paper towel a couple of inches inward from the edge of the towel with your favourite wheel/track cleaner, lay the dampened towel over the rails and run one power truck onto the damp spot and apply full power and spin the wheels, now do the same thing with the other power truck.  This does NOT work with traction tires, just another reason why traction tires are a bad idea.

Wheel cleaning done. 

For non-powered wheels, remove the vehicle from the track, turn it upside down and clean the crud from the wheel tread with a jeweler's flat screw driver.

Simple.

[Doneldon]

Now, if acetone is in anyway harmful to humans ingestion excepted, I'd be amazed that would be available without a permit.

Joe-

Acetone is harmful. It is one of many, many harmful products which do not require a permit because the substance is safe when used as directed. That means with plenty of ventilation or a mask which traps vapors, and while avoiding physical contact with the product. Will one whiff or a little on your finger kill you? Probably not unless you are one of the people who have a biological sensitivity to it. If you doubt me, there are hundreds of parents who lost their children to huffing acetone or nail polish remover in a plastic bag. There are also a few people with the scars to show how dangerous the stuff is if you use it in a basement with a water heater with a standing pilot. Acetone go BOOM! House, too, or maybe it will just catch fire.

Asbestos doesn't kill with a whiff or a brief exposure, either, but certainly no one doubts the insidious effects of long-term exposure. Acetone is just as dangerous plus it has those nasty little heart stopping and sudden explosion features that boring old asbestos lacks. Acetone certainly isn't the most dangerous common substance in the home, but it can be harmful if used carelessly. And remember, half of the world is below average so it's a sure bet that there are people who use it in an unsafe manner.

Also, and just for the record, acetone and nail polish remover aren't the same thing. Nail polish remover usually has acetone, or one or more very similar compounds, in it, but it has other components as well. These include fragrance, oil and additional solvents. There actually is some nail polish remover which has no acetone at all. I haven't made a careful study of which is what, however, because my use of nail polish and nail polish remover tends to be very low.
                                                                                                                                         -- D

[Joe Baldwin]

Now, if acetone is in anyway harmful to humans ingestion excepted, I'd be amazed that would be available without a permit.

Joe-

Acetone is harmful. - - - Acetone go BOOM! House, too, or maybe it will just catch fire.
- - -
                                                                                                                                         -- D

Don,
I think you have take the worst case scenario and taken it a few steps past.  Acetone is not a bomb in the medicine chest.  The propane tank in the grill is has far more lethal potential.  Actone evaporates so quickly that it would have to be an very small confined space to create an explosive result. 

My last words on the subject. 

Joe Daddy

[jbrock27]

J.D., perhaps I mistaken, but it appeared to me anyway, that in your above post, you expressed some concern over my using Acetone/nail polish remover on a rag "for hours" cleaning track.
If so, thanks for that concern, but I don't share it, as my layout is not so big as it would take me that long to clean it.  Even if it was much bigger, I doubt I would have concern over the skin contact and fumes, as I can wear a mask if I felt the need to and wash my hands.  To me, there are too many other things in life to have greater concern over.

[WoundedBear]

All this talk of acetone, and I think about my buddy Stu, who owns a fiberglass shop. He's been doing this since he was a kid and is in his 50's now...... he washes his bare hands in acetone to get the resin off his skin cause he won't wear gloves. Hasn't seemed to affect his health. He also doesn't use a respirator....just a particle mask.

Funny, his shop hasn't blown up in 35 years.....you'd think it would be a bomb and Stu should be a dead duck, the way Doneldon is talking. I think some folks take these warning labels a little too seriously.

Like those Californian rats....they get sick way too easily....everything seems to cause cancer in a rat from California....lmao.


Sid

[jbrock27]

How 'bout it Sid?  Ever single thing out of CA is labeled as "being known to cause cancer" 
Ridiculous !!

[jbrock27]

A P.S. for wheel cleaning that I forgot to add :

When I am pulling apart an old "A" blue box loco, I take the half axle wheels off and put the wheels and bronze bearings in an old vitamin container (like Centrum) and spray Liquid Wrench into the bottom of the container, enough to just cover the wheels (usually there is eight).  Close the cap, swirl it around now and again and let it sit for a few days.  Then pour them out into a cleaned our plastic tray (like from a frozen dinner) and clean off each wheel and bronze bearing with either a rag or paper towel.  You would not believe how shiny and like new the wheels get!  You can also tell by the color of the used Liquid Wrench, how much it has worked to clean the wheels.