ACY Tom I use an old shaving brush with soft bristles. I would never use a vacuum, for fear of losing smal parts. Tom
I use an old shaving brush with soft bristles. I would never use a vacuum, for fear of losing smal parts.
Tom
I like the shaving brush idea. I have a couple of those.
Regarding the vacuum . . . you can insert a sock (or nylon stocking if available) into the nozzle to catch stuff for inspection.
Robert
LINK to SNSR Blog
A note about removing dust: it is sometimes important to completely remove it rather than just redistribute it.
I used a combination of fine brushes and air blowing (from squeeze bulbs or thoroughly-dried compressed air) but with a small 'computer-cleaning' vacuum held reasonably close to the 'zone of work' to levitate and remove the liberated dust ... and periodically remove dust clinging to the brushes, too.
Whenever doing general cleaning, be sure your postfilters are good. A Shop-Vac without something like a plaster-dust bag is as effective a fine-dust distributor as a cleaner. And postfilters on the Shop-Vac exhaust may make sense too.
Some people tend to forget that "vacuum" cleaners are actually differential-wind cleaners. If you do not have the air motion of the wind blowing, and the levitation and entrainment of the schmutz, vacuums just suck. But scale tornadoes/derechos are not good for much fine detail, either, so it pays to think about exactly where you need the wind to blow 'away' from your work and how strong it should be.
doctorwayne it definitely wouldn't be happening in the layout room
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Absolutely! Never try to get the dust off in the layout room. Great point.
Real world dust does not look like weathering, but it really does not look bad in small amounts either. When it looks terrible to me is when a part of it gets brushed off, then the resulting "clean" spot ruins everything.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
mvlandsw To my eye it looks like full size dust, not scale size weathering.
To my eye it looks like full size dust, not scale size weathering.
Doughless mvlandsw I find that no matter how much I blow and brush there are spots in corners and under detail parts that do not come clean. For these difficult spots I use a small paint brush dampened with water which seems to get the dust off. Mark Could the stragglers pass for weathering? Dirt collects in the corners on the prototype too. Maybe no need to get that clean.
mvlandsw I find that no matter how much I blow and brush there are spots in corners and under detail parts that do not come clean. For these difficult spots I use a small paint brush dampened with water which seems to get the dust off. Mark
I find that no matter how much I blow and brush there are spots in corners and under detail parts that do not come clean. For these difficult spots I use a small paint brush dampened with water which seems to get the dust off.
Mark
Could the stragglers pass for weathering? Dirt collects in the corners on the prototype too. Maybe no need to get that clean.
My thought exactly.
- Douglas
On the subject of not touching your more delicate cars, if you have access to MR Video Plus you might find the "cassettes" that Ken Thompson has built on his BN Peoria subdivision to be an interesting alternative. It is part of a video layout tour and presumably will be featured in Great Model Railroads 2019.
http://mrv.trains.com/layouts/layout-visits/2017/06/mrvp-layout-visit-ken-thompsons-bn-peoria-subdivision-in-ho-scale
He has shelf like mounting for his cassettes - one above the other - which I suppose minimizes dust except for the top shelf
For cars that are not so delicate, Ken puts them in storage cabinets with labled shelves so that his computerized car forwarding system knows where they are. Those cabinets are enclosed and minimize dust.
Dave
I have used the Tamiya Anti-Static Brush for several years now. Designed specifically to zap static charge that clings dust to my models. A Google search will find where to buy and a demo YouTube video.
Check it out.
I have also used compressed air, but to save $$$ I'm considering using my airbrush as a miniature air gun.
Joel
Modeling the C&O New River Subdivision circa 1949 for the fun of it!
7j43k Doughless Yes, changes in humidity can cause the dust to stick, so some sort of friction with a brush I would think would be needed, and NOT adding to the humidity levels by spitting propellant would seem wise. In my 'sperience, the biggest contributor to dust sticking to models is tobacco smoke. By far. 'Cause I did. And then I stopped. It seems unlikely that the "spitting propellant" would increase humidity levels, since it's not water. And humidity is the amount of water vapor in air. Ed
Doughless Yes, changes in humidity can cause the dust to stick, so some sort of friction with a brush I would think would be needed, and NOT adding to the humidity levels by spitting propellant would seem wise.
Yes, changes in humidity can cause the dust to stick, so some sort of friction with a brush I would think would be needed, and NOT adding to the humidity levels by spitting propellant would seem wise.
In my 'sperience, the biggest contributor to dust sticking to models is tobacco smoke. By far. 'Cause I did. And then I stopped.
It seems unlikely that the "spitting propellant" would increase humidity levels, since it's not water. And humidity is the amount of water vapor in air.
Ed
I meant two different things. Spitting propellant causing moisture (humidity) on the surface, not increasing the dew point of the ambient air. But changing dew point would contribute to how badly the dust sticks to the trains.
I'd think some sort of friction is needed to dislodge the dust depending upon how long of an interval there is between cleanings.
I bought this brush from a vendor at the NATIONAL MODEL TRAIN SHOW in Orlando, Florida.
It was marked as a "dust remover brush", and cost only $2.00, so I bought five of them.
It works wonderfully. It removes all the dust, and reaches underneath all the fragile details without breaking anything.
When used in comnination with a small blow gun attached to my compressor and regulated down to 20 PSI, everything gets cleaned very nicely and quickly.
ROBERT PETRICK My brush features both soft bristles and gentle compressed air. The brush part is medium long camel hairs (I think), and the handle part is a large rubber bulb. Squeeze the bulb to get a controlled puff of air. It came as part of a camera cleaning kit. Robert
My brush features both soft bristles and gentle compressed air.
The brush part is medium long camel hairs (I think), and the handle part is a large rubber bulb. Squeeze the bulb to get a controlled puff of air. It came as part of a camera cleaning kit.
Camera cleaning kit! Combo brush and vac. Sounds interesting.
Graham Line Soft round brush with a vacuum cleaner running close enough by to pull in dust, but not close enough to suck in loose parts. Canned compressed air is too strong, won't dislodge all the dust that collects in nooks and crannies, and can spit drops of propellant at your fine models.
Soft round brush with a vacuum cleaner running close enough by to pull in dust, but not close enough to suck in loose parts.
Canned compressed air is too strong, won't dislodge all the dust that collects in nooks and crannies, and can spit drops of propellant at your fine models.
I use the soft, natural-hair paint brushes that you can find at places like Michael's and they come in a variety of sizes and widths. Combined with canned or compressed air, it makes for a good combination for dusting your locomotives, rolling stock, and layout.
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
I use the canned air that you use to clean electronic stuff, and a soft paint brush.
My problem with the fine details is my fingers! I shouldn't buy cars with delicate brake details.
Mike.
My You Tube
How do y'all do this, by soft brush or air compressor?
I've recently done the switch over from the Athearn BB/MDC Roundhouse stuff to more finely detailed rolling stock (because I like the look of thinner details, not because of accuracy), but I've come up against a bit of a complication.
Since I generally have more cars than my layout needs, my typical approach was to swap out chunks of cars onto the layout, returning the previously run batch of cars back to their boxes to enjoy a different batch of cars.
With the finer detailed stuff, I don't want to handle them back and forth into boxes as much, so I plan to leave them on the layout more.
But then I expect them to get dusty and it seems I will have to handle them a lot anyway. With the BB/MDC stuff, this issue didn't seem to matter, but limiting the handling of the cars I operate has now presented a complication I didn't have before.
Just wondering how y'all keep your finely detailed models clean.