Unitrack and Dishwashers?

[rpierce000]

As an experiment I took a piece of straight UniTrack with the viaduct underpart on it and ran it through the dishwasher. The track needed cleaning, so I thought one pieces, what the heck?

 

I now have a VERY clean piece of UniTrack and it runs perfectly.

 

Aside from the obvious issues with moving and electrical bits, can anyone see anything WRONG with doing this? Has anyone else done it?

 

I have a fair amount of UniTrack and I spend more time than I would like cleaning it. If I could just run it through the dishwasher...

 

Thanks for your wise counsel...

 

Bob

[dickturpin]

Did you use a softner.

 

Dick Turpin

[KenS]

Well, any water that got into the unijoiner could remain and lead to corrosion.  And soap tends to leave a film, which might cause electrical problems or attract dirt. Water even without soap could leave "hard water" (lime scale) deposits behind with similar problems depending on your local water quality.

 

All that said, if you pop the unijoiners off first, and wipe the railhead after with a cotton pad soaked in dilute rubbing alcohol, you'd probably be fine.  And you might be okay even without that.

 

I wouldn't wash a switch thought. 

[The_Ghan]

Hmm ... I seriously don't see a problem other than Kato don't market their product as "dishwasher safe".  The way glasses come out these days ... squeeky clean ... I'm not surprised it worked.

 

On the lighter side, it reminds me of some idiot in Australia who thought of washing paint off his overalls by filling his washing machine with petrol.  He blew himself up.  Don't worry Bob, that shouldn't happen to you ... so long as you're not loading your dishwasher with petrol!!!

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[Guest Closed Account 1]

Just wrong to wash electricals with water.

 

Corrosion issues and warping the plastic.

[cteno4]

yeah sound like it should work, but like others have said just an issue of any trapped water and possibly a residue, depending on how well it rinses, could do an extra rinse cycle.

 

i would be careful of the dry cycle, some dish washers get pretty hot and might warp the roadbed plastic or make it brittle.

 

if you want to be ultra clean after the dish washer just dunk them into a tub of distilled water and swish around. let air dry then swish it around in a tub of 50% isopropanol/water and air dry. that should remove any films and the isopropanol will help get the water out of stuff and leave it clean and dry quickly. this is the process ive used very successfully over the years for drowned electronic equipment, ive been a good dr frankenstein over the years...

 

cheers

 

jeff

[inobu]

Although its a novel ideal its not too practical based on the user.

 

The process is counter productive for a completed layout in that one would have to remove the track and reinstall it.

 

Someone operating a temp layout would be better off cleaning the track as they put it away.

 

The potential problems (Stated) that one could incur over time becomes a liability and as KenS jokingly pointed out the switches would have to be cleaned manually. One might be better off cleaning the rest of the track in the same manner as the switches.

 

Sometime the hard way is the quickest...........

 

Inobu

[cteno4]

good point inobu! we actually thought about doing a washing (although not in the dishwasher) of the jrm track when we use to doing the old set up on the fly layout. after a few years the track was getting a bit grimy. it was hard for us to clean the track easily except the tops with the rail cleaning cars as using more aggressive cleaning with a rag is hard to do when the track is set up and not nailed down.

 

jeff

[brill27mcb]

Actually, people regularly run LGB trains through the dishwasher to clean them (outdoor use).

 

Rich K.

[Guest Closed Account 1]

The money invested in a cmx cleaning car has solved our track issues. Next is getting a rotating brush/vacuum car for precleaning before the cmx car.

[cteno4]

webskipper,

 

its a good combo. use the tomix to suck up as much smutz first (you would be surprised what it will end up sucking up!) then the roller car to clean the track. i added a heki tank cleaner car that has fluid in it with a wipe onto the rail before the roller car to keep from having to rewet the roller all the time.

 

glass of beer or wine also helps make the cleaning go better for the operator... red wine is sposta help clear the arteries!

 

jeff

[Guest Closed Account 1]

My girlfriend bought me a pack of synthetic makeup applicators to clean the switches. Cotton cannot be used near N Gauge layouts because the fibers will find their way to axles and wheels.

[cteno4]

those are great. at times you can find them on sale on ebay for 20 small double ended ones for little over $1. they also work great to do weathering on stuff as well.

 

jeff

[rpierce000]

Let me clarify what I will be using this for.  We get lots of used UniTrack, sometimes a couple of hundred pieces at a time. Cleaning them by hand has been daunting and so they have just been building up until I could come up with a good way to clean them.

 

Obviously any electronics are a NoNo, I think I said something like that in my first post.

 

What about ultrasonic cleaners like they sell for jewlery and glasses?

 

My main problem is that sometimes there is corrosion on the rails and removing it is a real task.

 

Bob

[KenS]

I presume you're planning on getting a large one, and not doing a couple of tracks sections at a time?

 

I've thought about getting an ultrasonic cleaner myself (the smaller kind).  The problem with using them with unitrack is that either you just use distilled water as the solution in the cleaner, or you use something that lifts dirt better, and need to rinse the part off with water to remove the cleaning solution and the dirt before it rebonds to the surface.  Either way you end up with water, and you still have the potential issue with trapped water in Unijoiners or under the rails.

 

And none of that is likely to help much with corrosion.  Anything strong enough to separate corrosion from metal is likely going to attack the plastic.  You can loosen any mild corrosion, but you may still need to use a bright-boy by hand for the hard stuff.

 

All that said, it sounds like a good idea.  You'll at least get the dirt off, and if something needs to be hand-scrubbed to get the corrosion off, you can do a second pass through the cleaner to remove what you've loosened. And you need to figure out how to dry them off effectively on a large scale (maybe an air compressor and blow the parts dry).

[cteno4]

bob,

 

an ultrasonic cleaner should work fine and be a more thorough clean than the dishwasher. here is the process i use in the ultra sonic cleaner to get gummy things cleared off of anything with plastic:

 

- a soap solution something very simple like joy and distilled water

 

- a couple of distilled water passes (to get the soap all out of it)

 

- then pat dry in a towel to get major water off

 

- then a quick 50-70% isopropanol pass. this should push most all the water out of unijoiner cracks and crevices and from under the rail.

 

- pat dry with a towel and put in a warm place (like in the sun) for the last bits of the isopropanol to evaporate.

 

ill throw a small section of track in my little guy to see if this will work to get the water out. i doubt a 1-2 minute isopropanol pass will hurt the unitrak paint, it seems pretty tough and when i use isopropanol to strip paint from plastic parts i usually have to soak it for quite a while before it has any effect.

 

harbor freight has some larger ultra sonic cleaner units at reasonable prices.

 

the corrosion is another story. that you will need to think about potentially scraping any heavy bits off (dental tools are great for this as well as rubber burnishing wheels afterwards with a roto tool) then i would look at using phosphoric acid solution (sometimes called ospho) to kill the corrosion. you would need to experiment with this some, but a dilute solution should make any surface corrosion turn black and kill it w/o affecting the plastic or paint i think. you can then scrub off the black ferricphosphate to give fresh metal. ive used it around other painted metal and i think some plastics at time on boat stuff to do the final surface cleaning of metal parts before painting them. i think you may be hard pressed to remove all the corrosion manually, but you could try that and see if it just does not come back if not back in that damp environment that started it. i think there is some ospho in the garage ill test it on a piece of track if its there.

 

if you had a lot to do i could see using a router face and fence attachment to a roto tool with rubber burnishing tip (its hard gnarly rubber used for cleaning metal jewelry, more abrasive than buffing tip, but not a grinder tip) to try to set up a little jig that would let you just slide the track thru the jig and just have the 2mm fo the sides of the rails get a polish. could do the same with the top of the rail as well. doing a lot of track by hand with a roto tool would be quite a bit of work if there is a lot of surface corrosion going on.

 

as ken noted after doing any corrosion work you will then want to do your regular cleaning pass to remove anything that the corrosion cleaning has left on the rails.

 

jeff

[Guest Closed Account 1]

The CMX track cleaner will accept emery cloth (or other) pieces. That scuffs up the rails.

 

Can't speak for the performance of the Atlas/Tomix track cleaner.

[The_Ghan]

Bob,

 

I have some experience with ultrasonic cleaners.  We used to use them to clean our drawing pens and, in the early days of CAD, the ink pens on the pen plotter.  They are fantastic.  On the side, we used to clean watch bands, jewerly, coins, and the like.

 

A word of warning though, they will remove applied finishes such as chrome from plastics and ceramics.  They also took the chrome off a watchband.  I can't imagine there is any chrome on the track though.  They might also be good for cleaning wheels in large quantities.  I don't own one at the moment so I can't test it.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[KenS]

- then a quick 50-70% isopropanol pass. this should push most all the water out of unijoiner cracks and crevices and from under the rail.

 

Clever idea. I hadn't thought of that, but I'd expect to work fairly well.

 

- pat dry with a towel and put in a warm place (like in the sun) for the last bits of the isopropanol to evaporate.

 

ill throw a small section of track in my little guy to see if this will work to get the water out. i doubt a 1-2 minute isopropanol pass will hurt the unitrak paint, it seems pretty tough and when i use isopropanol to strip paint from plastic parts i usually have to soak it for quite a while before it has any effect.

 

I'd suggest 50% and a short session.  I use 70% on a low-fiber cotton pad to clean my track, and I've seen it lift some of the brown from the ties (not all of it, just a bit) if I'm not careful to keep the pad away from the plastic.

[rpierce000]

Thank you for all the input.

 

The work on the corrosion has to be in bulk or very fast. Naval Jelly is workable, I use it to restore woodworking tools, but NASTY. A definite wash job afterwards.

 

I had not thought about multiple trips through the ultrasonic with different solutions, but I really like the idea. We could vary the bath by the day. Do all the track through distilled on Monday, Iso on Tuesday, etc.

 

The unit I am looking at is 14" long, 12" wide and 8" deep. I figure that will hold 50 pieces of track a run if we are neat, 30 if we just chuck it in there. With some care and experimenting I would guess we can get it down to less than an hour a run.

 

If you knew that the track had been cleaned in this manner would you pay a premium over just used track?

 

Bob

[cteno4]

Bob,

 

well not sure if you want to do it in parallel like that. you should only need 5-10 min per run so i would do 2-3 runs ea with your soap/cleaner, then tap rinse, then distilled rinse, then iso. in between just let the batches of track sit out on some towels. i would not let the track sit a day between each run.

 

do test the naval jelly first on the plastic though! i cant remember the phosphoric acid strength in naval jelly. if you just used a dilute water solution of phosphoric acid you could just put like 1mm depth in a tray and just plunk the track rail down in it so you are not soaking the road bed in it. of course it will wick up to the top face, but may help limit exposure to the acid. also need to check to see if the roadbed plastic gets brittle after the acid treatment...

 

also some of the older unijoiners tend to be more prone to corrosion than the newer ones, so do check them out well. this is where you could get big voltage drops if there is corrosion in there.

 

sorry i forgot to test the iso in the bath, ill do that thurs.

 

jeff

[The_Ghan]

Bob,

 

I wouldn't pay a premium for track cleaned this way.  I'd simply expect it to be clean if I'm buying from a shop.

 

I'm going back a dozen years or more, but the ultrasonic cleaner we used at work had a 3 minute timer.  I used it to clean all sorts of things and I can't ever remember putting things through more than twice.  We found that the cleaning solutions offered little over tap water, really, and stopped using solutions altogether.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[inobu]

Bob,

 

You are now getting to the basic of your endeavor..........."If you knew that the track had been cleaned in this manner would you pay a premium over just used track?"

 

You have to look at the ROI (Return on Investment). The cost of the cleaning process verses the cleaning markup. I don't think that the return is going to yeild very much.

 

As one buys in bulk the expectation is that the unit cost will drop. Your cleaning markup will be offset by the bulk price potentially giving you a wash (pun?). Adding the "premium" also take you out of the "as is" clause

requiring a quality assurance step increasing your overhead (added labor). A guy sending you back all of his bad track for good ones could really impact you in a bad way.

 

Just food for thought.

 

Inobu 

 

 

 

[The_Ghan]

Bob,

 

I think you need to amend the sales pitch on this "cleaned track".  Hypothetically, the ultrasonic cleaner should remove all the glue, ballast, paint and other stuff that gets adhered to used track, as well as cleaning the track itself.  It will remove any brown paint applied to the rail edges to "age" the track, etc.  The dishwasher won't do this.  So, the track is better than clean ...

 

You're talking about "Reconditioned Track"!

 

If I buy secondhand track I accept all the gunk that comes with it.  I only clean the top of the rail anyway and the other gunk stays on the track and gets incorporated somehow into the layout.  If it was being sold as "cleaned" I'd expect the top of the rails to be bright and chunks of gunk to have been removed with a Stanley knife.  I'd accept the odd broken sleeper, the extra hole drilled for fixing, etc. as well.

 

I'd buy your "Reconditioned Track" at somewhere between the "new" and "secondhand" market rates.  I'd still accept the odd extra hole for wire or fixing, but probably not broken sleepers or joiners.

 

New Track, Reconditioned Track, Secondhand Track.  Mate, you've got three separate products!

 

You've also got yourself a "Track Reconditioning Service".  What's a reasonable price to pay for this?  If I wanted to recondition a small layout of, say 2 - 3 loops and a handful of sidings, say 60 pieces of track, I think $39 would be reasonable and $29 would be a "must-do".  Particularly if I could drop it in on Monday and pick it up on Friday.  But to make that viable for you, you'd need to be able to do the work in 30-40 minutes, right?

 

Hope this also helps.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan