It was both displayed and stored in a finished basement with a dehumidifier. Im sure there was still some humidity.
Well,good news. It isnt rust. Just some real funcky dirt that is stuck on it like crazy! I took track cleaner and a scotch brite scrubber and with some serious scrubbing it came clean.(one piece)!! It would take forever to do all the track I have that way. Would I be able to use something more abrasive like a "brite boy" track cleaning bar? I used it on HO track years ago, but dont know if its too abrasive for tin track.
No one cleans their track here???
Be patient me old son, sometimes it takes a while to get a response.
Unfortunately there's no fast way to clean nasty track. Sounds like you're OK with the Scotchbrite, but I'd use alcohol as a cleaner, either rubbing alcohol or de-natured. Trust me, there's no way to avoid using elbow grease, unless you purchase one of those purpose-built track cleaning cars.
Don't use "Goo-Gone." I've been told the residue will attack traction tires.
I have successfully cleaned grimy FasTrack in the dishwasher. Pot scrub cycle on, heated dry OFF, open door and air dry track as soon as the last rinse cycle drains and shuts down.
Rob
Not sure how carmel looking it is but maybe it you could get some thinned tan paint and do the rest of the track so it looked like it is weathered just an idea if cleaning is to hard
Life's hard, even harder if your stupid John Wayne
http://rtssite.shutterfly.com/
I think what you have on the track is some dried grease or oil. Dried grease or oil can be very difficult to get off. I bought some new FasTrack a few years ago, and one of the strange things was I had to clean it frequently to remove oil or grease from it. The oil and grease did not have time to dry out. I removed the oil by attaching a pad of paper towels with rubber bands to a heavy car and soaking the paper towels with rubbing alcohol.
To get the dried stuff off of your track, you might try MEK or laquer thinner. These two will dissolve stuff that many solvents won't. Just keep it off of the plastic.
BTW, many of my post war cars have dried Lionel Lube on the wheels, and it is like concrete and very difficult to remove.
https://brentsandsusanspicutures.shutterfly.com/
Here's what I use on my Fastrack:
http://www.theruststore.com/Sandflex-Rust-Eraser-Fine-P10C7.aspx
Works great!
Helpful hint: If the family cat hocks a hairball onto your Fastrack, clean it up immediately! The acids in the thing will rust the rail quickly. I have a curved piece that STILL has etched marks on the metal to this day...
Mitch
A rag and rubbing alcohol, and then a Mr. Clean magic cleaner pad. Works good on getting the grease and oil off.
One last thing which may be of interest: I've got some Lionel Fastrack and tried an experiment. I was curious as to whether it was stainless or regular steel, so I slapped a magnet on it to see if it would stick. High-grade stainless won't attract a magnet, but the magnet stuck to the Fastrack.
So be warned, that's plain old steel on Fastrack. It will corrode given time and neglect.
Magnets work on GarGraves SS track.
But FasTrack is not stainless, for sure. It rusts quite readily.
If magnets work on GarGraves stainless track what you've got is a not-very-high grade of stainless steel. Not really a bad thing, let me explain.
When I was in the gun business in the '80s stainless steel pistols and revolvers began to make their appearance. A manufacturers rep (and a machinist friend bore him out on this) told me that pure stainless is an absolute nightmare to work with, plus pure stainless steel won't hold the pressures guns have to contain. What the gunmakers did was use a grade of stainless steel that had only just enough chromium in the alloy to give it stainless properties. Rust resistance was very good and it was a lot easier to work with, but it would still rust if negelected long enough. I suspect GarGraves does the same thing for the same reasons, hence the reason it'll attract and hold a magnet. Those guns I mentioned earlier held magnets too.
Interestingly the only stainless guns that DIDN'T hold magnets were the Italian made replicas of Civil War revolvers. Being black powder guns they didn't have to deal with the pressures of modern gunpowder, and were produced by investment casting eliminating most of the machine work.
According to Wikipedia, their crystalline structure determines whether stainless steels are magnetic. Two types, austenitic and ferritic, are not magnetic, and one, martensitic, is. I don't pretend to know what those terms mean; but the article makes it clear that each type comprises many different alloys of iron, chromium, and other elements.
The old desk that I am sitting at has stainless-steel legs. When I bought it in the 1970s, I couldn't get it into the room where I needed it without sawing 1/2 inch off of two legs. I just kept the cut-off pieces loose under the legs for many years and several moves. Sometime in the 1980s on a whim, I decided to try to solder the pieces back on and was surprised at how easy it was. I just tested the legs with a magnet: They are not magnetic. Maybe that means that martensitic stainless steel is easy to solder.
Bob Nelson
The stainless steel 17-4PH is much stronger than most steels. When heat treated, its ultimate strength can be 220,000 psi or higher. Grade 8 bolts are only 150,000 psi. High speed steel, which is another stainless steel, can go to 500,000 psi. Tool Steels Roberts, Hamaker, & Johnson Third Edition American Society for Metals Copyright 1962.
It is no surprise that tool steels are stronger than high carbon steels as they are alloys which are selected to be very strong and very hard. Apparently the gun makers didn't want to use expensive steels. 17-4PH is relatively expensive. The high speed steels are very expensive and can only be machined by grinding after they are heat treated.
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