Hi all, I am wanting to clean the track and wheels of my locos and rolling stock. But...
1. Does isopropyl strip metal/steel of it's protective coating (the coating that stops rust and corrosion from forming)?
2. Does isopropyl cause metal/steel to rust/corrode?
All help is appreciated, thanks.
Alcohol is one of the milder solvents. It won't dissolve plastic or strip paint. Far as I know the various kinds of alcohol (ethanol, methanol, isopropyl, rubbing, shellac thinner, what have you) are about the same used as as cleaning solvents. Alcohol as you buy it is always a mixture of water and alcohol. Drinking alcohol is about half water. Rubbing alcohol is 71% alcohol. The highest alcohol percent I ever heard of for sake is 91%. Alcohol is hydroscopic, it loves water and will pull water vapor right out of the air. I'm told that 91% alcohol will dilute itself down to something a lot less strong in a matter of days. I am sure that 50% alcohol is strong enough to cut the crud that builds up on rails.
As far as rail goes, it is all nickel silver now which tarnishes but does not rust. The tarnish is almost invisible and conducts electricity. I never heard of any kind of coating on rail, at least not in HO. I clean my track with GooGone on a rag. The Googone acts as a nickel-silver polish and turns the tarnish back into bright metal. I clean wheels by laying a paper towel on the track, moistening it with GooGone and running the car back and forth over the paper towel. Nice big streaks of black come off the wheels and show on the paper towel. Locomotives get powered up to spin their wheels on the paper towel.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
JohnSB. Does isopropyl strip metal/steel of it's protective coating (the coating that stops rust and corrosion from forming)?
As far as I know, there is no protective coating. Track is either nickel silver or brass, and there used to be a rail made of steel. I think Bachmann put it out. It's the EZ Track with the black base.
JohnSB Does isopropyl cause metal/steel to rust/corrode?
No, I've never had that happen. It evaporates pretty quick.
Dstarr gives a good description. I've never used the GooGone, everybody is different. I use laquer thinner, sparingly. Some say that laquer thinner will melt plastic, etc., never had that problem in all the years I've used it. It will remove paint, so you do have to be carefull.
Mike.
My You Tube
John,
No and no to both your questions.
Metal wheels and nickel-silver track do not have a "protective coating" on them. (If they did then current would not be able to flow from the rail to the motor brushes of your locomotive so it will operate.) They are a hybrid of metals with built-in resistance to corrosion. Neither is a very good conductor of electricity so a protective coating would only make them worse.
Isopropyl alcohol will not distrurb the surfaces of your metal wheels or track; nor cause them to rust or corrode. So, unless you plan on exposing them to very high temperatures (1000F+) or certain environmental or chemical extremes, they'll be just fine.
Tom
[FYI: John - This query could have been added as a subsequent question in your other but similar topic thread on cleaning track with isopropyl. If the topics are similar, it's best to keep them in ONE place rather than in multiple threads. Please keep this in mind when posting in the future. Thanks for your understanding and cooperation.]
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Rubbing alcohol is isopropanol and comes in two strengths. The 70% is good to use for cleaning track, wheels etc. 90% is also good for cleaning, but is used as a plastic friendly paint stripper so its use should be limited on or near painted surfaces.
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
I use isopropyl alcohol as track cleaner, sometimes. It's also in some of the commercially available track cleaners, if I'm correct.
It can sometimes damage painted finishes if not wiped off promptly.
John
Ok, first of all thankyou tstage for replying and for taking the time to do that, and I'm sorry that I started a new thread with a similar topic. It's just that no one was replying to the subsequent questions that I asked (the questions in this post).
Secondly now i'm not trying to start an argument here, and not trying to be a pain in the neck, sorry if I am, I do not intend to be. Let me guess..
Q1, you don't think steel rails and wheels would have a protective coating on them either? I was thinking that if there was, that maybe the coating would be electrically conductive.
Q2, Would isopropyl disturb the surfaces of steel track and steel wheels, and would it cause them to rust and corrode?
Steel was used in old American Flyer track. If it sat idle in a humid climate for a long period of time it began to rust and required sanding to make it conductive again. Nickle-silver track does not rust but does oxidize over time. The oxidation, however, is still conductive. Manufactured track nowadays is nickel-silver.
Nickel-silver is an alloy (Ni & Ag). Neither element rusts on its own so it wouldn't make sense that they would change when combined. Therefore, there would no reason to coat them with a protective coating.
[EDIT: I did a little reading and found out that Nickel-silver alloy is actually made up of three primary elements: Copper, nickel, and zinc. The percentage ratios can vary but a commom formuation is 60%/20%/20%, respectively.]
Lastly, isopropyl alcohol evaporates fairly quickly. And the higher % of alcohol; the quicker the evaporation rate because it contains less water. Plain steel track or wheels would require submersion in alcohols with higher water content over lengthy periods of time - e.g. weeks and months - before they would show signs of corrosion.
So, cleaning your track with isopropyl isn't going to rust or corrode your track or wheels. If it's a concern then use lacquer thinner. It has a high evaporation rate but it's also more aggressive on plastics.
dstarrAlcohol is one of the milder solvents. It won't dissolve plastic or strip paint. Far as I know the various kinds of alcohol (ethanol, methanol, isopropyl, rubbing, shellac thinner, what have you) are about the same used as as cleaning solvents. Alcohol as you buy it is always a mixture of water and alcohol. Drinking alcohol is about half water. Rubbing alcohol is 71% alcohol. The highest alcohol percent I ever heard of for sake is 91%. Alcohol is hydroscopic, it loves water and will pull water vapor right out of the air. I'm told that 91% alcohol will dilute itself down to something a lot less strong in a matter of days. I am sure that 50% alcohol is strong enough to cut the crud that builds up on rails. As far as rail goes, it is all nickel silver now which tarnishes but does not rust. The tarnish is almost invisible and conducts electricity. I never heard of any kind of coating on rail, at least not in HO. I clean my track with GooGone on a rag. The Googone acts as a nickel-silver polish and turns the tarnish back into bright metal. I clean wheels by laying a paper towel on the track, moistening it with GooGone and running the car back and forth over the paper towel. Nice big streaks of black come off the wheels and show on the paper towel. Locomotives get powered up to spin their wheels on the paper towel.
Thankyou dstarr for replying. Doesn't nickle silver have a yellow, or yellow orange colour to it. You see when I look at my tracks the rails just look grey metallic and they also have some rust on them, so I get the impression that they are steel. And does isopropyl alcohol cause steel to rust and corrode? Sorry if I'm being a pain. I don't mean to be. I am just really worried about damaging the parts I have.
JohnSBDoesn't nickle silver have a yellow, or yellow orange colour to it. You see when I look at my tracks the rails just look grey metallic and they also have some rust on them, so I get the impression that they are steel. And does isopropyl alcohol cause steel to rust and corrode? Sorry if I'm being a pain. I don't mean to be. I am just really worried about damaging the parts I have.
Brass looks yellow orange. I don't see that on nickel steel at all.
In the last century the ties of flex track were not plastic, but some sort of fiber. I believe the rail was steel, but my forum friends will correct me. Those tracks as best I remember looked grayish and not shiny like nickel steel.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
If the track is yellowish in color, John, then it's brass. When brass oxidizes it loses conductivity; the opposite of nickel-silver. So you would need to remove the oxide from brass track in order for your locomotives to operate smoothly.
And alcohol doesn't rust steel...but water will.
JohnSB 1. Does isopropyl strip metal/steel of it's protective coating (the coating that stops rust and corrosion from forming)? 2. Does isopropyl cause metal/steel to rust/corrode?
So, let's turn your two questions around and ask some related questions to you.
1. Modern scale rail is made of nickel-silver (and, as tstage indicated, some copper as well). Nickel-silver rail does not contain iron which is normally required to be present to cause rust. But, you keep saying 'steel', so what type of track do you have and what is the protective coating that you keep referring to?
2. Isopropyl alcohol does contain water which must be present to cause rust on metals that contain iron, but isopropyl alcohol evaporates failry quickly when exposed to air. That said, I have soaked nickel-silver rail track for weeks in isopropyl alcohol to remove glue from ballasting. I have never observed rust as a result. What evidence, scientific or anecdotal, do you have that isopropyl alcohol causes rust on any metal, be it nickel-silver or steel? Or, for that matter that isopropyl alcohol removes the protective coating that you refer to? And, what are the properties of the protective coating that you refer to?
3. If you remain concerned about using isopropyl alcohol for cleaning purposes, why not simply avoid it and use some other cleaning agent?
Rich
Alton Junction
Thank you all for your time, patience, advice and knowledge. I thought that steel rails had a protective coating, because I was reading a couple of peoples posts from another forum which was to do with removing rust from track, and how they said something about removing the coating from the rails, promotes more rust or something like that. But I got mixed up. Anyway I'm sorry about all this and any convenience that this caused.
Nickel silver has a white lustre. Brass shows a yellow lustre very close to the lustre of gold. Back in the 50's HO track was made with brass rail but they switched over to using nickel silver in the early 60's, a long time ago. Nickel silver looks better and the tarnish conducts electricity so the trains still run even if the rail is tarnished. Brass tarnish does not conduct electricity and will stop the trains from running.
Alcohol will not corrode any metal. It will evaporate into the air within a few minutes. We perferred alcohol for cleaning optics because it evaporated completely and did not leave an oily film.
If you are getting red rust on your rails then they are steel. They used to make track with steel rail years ago. You can check this, if a magnet will stick to the rail then it is steel. You can clean the rust off with steel wool, and perhaps a touch of oil. You only need to clean the rail heads, leave the sides of the rail rusty, that's what the prototype does.
To reiterate some points:
Yes, nickel-silver is the most common track available these days. However, *also yes* to some snap track included in cheap train sets having steel rail.
Steel rail is a very greyish-silver colour.
Nickel "silver" is mainly a silvery colour but *does* in fact have a slight yellowish tint compared to steel if you put them side by side, but you don't really see it if it's by itself.
Brass of course is a strong golden colour, but can easily tarnish and turn a darker colour.
Like everyone else, I've never heard if any sort of "protective coating" on any sort of metal rail. Likely that would defeat any sort of electrical conductivity.
Some people will use stuff like electrical contact cleaner, graphite, or other products that may form an electrically-conductive film, but this is something that has to be regularly cleaned and maintained. Not something that is there from the manufacturer.
Alcohol is widely used for cleaning rails and wheels. It will not harm either metal or plastic.
It *can* be used to strip paint off models, but only if you soak the model for extended period of time to loosen up the paint. It may be more or less effective with different types of paint. You can take off acrylics with alcohol fairly easily.
One thing to be careful of is that alcohol can react to DullCote and cause a whiteish haziness from the talc suspended in the DullCote, so be careful not to drip or smear a wet finger on a care that's been custom painted/weathered/finished with a DullCote clear-coat. But this is easy to avoid unless you're splashing the alcohol all over the place....
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
All this discussion about alcohol, I went to 3 retail stores this morning to buy some rubbing alcohol for cleaning track... ALL 3 stores were out of stock.. Manager explained "as soon as it comes in , its sells out". Sigh
jjo All this discussion about alcohol, I went to 3 retail stores this morning to buy some rubbing alcohol for cleaning track... ALL 3 stores were out of stock.. Manager explained "as soon as it comes in , its sells out". Sigh
You could use denatured alcohol, available in the paint department of hardware stores, home centers, etc. Or you could try Goo Gone. Some people recommend low-odor mineral spirits for cleaning track, but even the low-odor smell bothers me.
Gary
is goo gone smelly?
Joe Staten Island West