HOW TO CLEAN COMMUTATOR

[JeremyB]

Hey there guys
This afternoon I cleaned the commutator on my engine with a little rubbing alcohol and now the engine purrs,have i stumbled on a new trick or has this been around a while.does anybody else do this and if they do how many times a week or month do they do it to there engines.
Jeremy.

[Anonymous]

Good for you, Jeremy.
That's probably an Athearn engine, going by your other post.
A lot of model railroaders clean the commutators with alcohol, some use a fine, hard eraser, like the ones that used to be sold for erasing ballpoint ink.
The main thing with an eraser is to blow out all the fine dust that might lodge under the brushes.
How often?
Depends on how much you run it, and how much airborne dust might be getting up under the shell of the unit.
I clean mine once every 2-3 years on the average.
regards / Mike