I am about to start a project to remove ballast off the top of the ties on my flex track. When I laid my flex track some years ago, I over did the ballasting, and some of the ballast, in fact too much ballast, is glued on top of the ties. I could leave it, but it looks awful when I use my mini cam to shoot videos from the engineer's view point.
The ballast is glued down with matte medium, and it requires rubbing alcohol to remove it. Yesterday, I experimented by soaking a piece of flex track in a wallpaper tray. But that tray is only 30" wide. I need a 36" tray. Any ideas?
Rich
Alton Junction
This is just a thought and I am N Scale and use HighBall real rock ballast glued down with 3:1 white glue.
When I need to make a track change or pull out a turnout I spray plenty of wet water on the area and let it soak in for awhile. Then I can cut the track out and using a flat type putty knife and scrape the ballast off the cork easily, clean it and put in a new section right on top of the old cork.
So my thought is, why can't you wet your ballast a section or so at a time and vac up the excess ballast but not taking to much using the suction of the vac and re-ballasting to the top of the ties and re-gluing with your choice of product.
I say this because I have a small red devil vac that is powerful and when ballasting if I get to much ballast on the track I will bring this close to the track and let the vac suck up just a small amount and then reset the left over new ballast before gluing. So maybe it would work as mentioned above for removing your already installed ballast. Doug
Doug, thanks, I have thought about doing that, but I want to pull the track up to clean it because when I first laid it, it was crooked. So this would give me a chance to both clean the flex track and lay it straight. And, in the process, I just might use caulk instead of track nails.
Hey Rich
If you want a tray, get a 4' piece of horizontal gutter and seal an end cap on each end. If you get a 3' piece the end caps will shorten it by about 3/4". Use a sealant that won't desolve with your alcohol.
Hope this helps. Have a good day MRRing.
Lee
Bryan B.
A Rain gutter is a great idea, and I would not have thought of it. We have brakes here at the abbey, and could bend a piece, but LION is much simpler than that.
Take a piece of wood or something (or nothing at all) and roll out the aluminiminiminum foil the long way of course, and bend it upwards to form a water tight alumn.... basket. It will not last forever, but it will soak your track for you. When you are done, you can crumple it up and toss it and not have a drain gutter lying about your basement....
HEY! WAit a minute! I *want* that rain gutter for my work bench. I can make compartments in it for LEDs, resistors, and Little Plastic Parts, so that I have them at the tip of my claws.
And I can put another piece along the FRONT EDGE of my work table, so that things that fall off can be found again. GREAT IDEA.
I am *sure* we have some of that stuff in the metal shop or in the power house.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I'd suggest using a piece of 1 1/2" ABS drain pipe (the black plastic stuff) with a cap cemented on one end. If you also buy a second cap, you can use it to prevent the alcohol from evapourating while the length of track is soaking or between sessions - obviously, you'll need to store the pipe vertically as long as it contains alcohol. I'd make it a bit longer than the track, so that as the removed ballast builds up, you'll still have room for a full-length piece of track, although if you're doing a lot of track with a lot of ballast, you'll need to periodically empty the ballast.
If you're careful, you should be able to drain most of the clean alcohol into a container, then rinse the ballast out with water. If you empty that into a tray (plastic paint-roller tray, wash tub, or even baking pan) you could probably recover the ballast, too.The 1 1/2" pipe will accommodate seven pieces of track as long as you stack them together and insert them as one - done separately, the ties will likely snag. I'd suggest inserting the initial batch into the dry pipe, then adding the alcohol. That way, you'll use only the alcohol required to fill the tube, although you may have to top it up occasionally.
To prevent a recurrence of ballast atop the ties, use less ballast (that one's pretty obvious), but even then you'll have stray bits of it in places where it shouldn't be. To get rid of it easily, take the soft brush which you use to distribute the ballast and flip it around so that you can grasp it loosely by the ferrule. Lay the handle across the top of the rails, then, as you move it along the track, tap it rapidly with the fingers of your free hand. The stray ballast will "magically" bounce off the ties and into the spaces between them.
Wayne
doctorwayneI'd suggest using a piece of 1 1/2" ABS drain pipe (the black plastic stuff) with a cap cemented on one end. If you also buy a second cap, you can use it to prevent the alcohol from evapourating while the length of track is soaking or between sessions
I'm with Wayne only I was going to suggest the white PVC - not sure it makes a difference. If you get a screw-on cap for one end, you could rig up something that would create a rocking motion and cause the liquid to slose back and forth and accelerate the process. I built something like this years ago when I was doing a lot of custom painting and need to strip shells.
I'd also consider using water with a little dish washing liquid instead of the alcohol.
I have the right to remain silent. By posting here I have given up that right and accept that anything I say can and will be used as evidence to critique me.
carl425 doctorwayne I'd suggest using a piece of 1 1/2" ABS drain pipe (the black plastic stuff) with a cap cemented on one end. If you also buy a second cap, you can use it to prevent the alcohol from evapourating while the length of track is soaking or between sessions I'm with Wayne only I was going to suggest the white PVC - not sure it makes a difference. If you get a screw-on cap for one end, you could rig up something that would create a rocking motion and cause the liquid to slose back and forth and accelerate the process. I built something like this years ago when I was doing a lot of custom painting and need to strip shells. I'd also consider using water with a little dish washing liquid instead of the alcohol.
doctorwayne I'd suggest using a piece of 1 1/2" ABS drain pipe (the black plastic stuff) with a cap cemented on one end. If you also buy a second cap, you can use it to prevent the alcohol from evapourating while the length of track is soaking or between sessions
rrebell Water should do little to the matt medium, very water resistant once dry!
Water should do little to the matt medium, very water resistant once dry!
That's all I have ever read in the comments here, too. I have never attempted to soften matte or gloss medium, but I keep seeing posts over the years from people who say it has never worked for them.
rrebellWater should do little to the matt medium, very water resistant once dry!
I thought for sure I had done this. Maybe I'm misremembering and it was white glue. I do remember clearly though that the dishwashing liquid (I always used Dawn) made a difference in removing whatever it was.
Sorry for the misinformation.
Matte medium's real purpose is thinning and expanding artists acrylic paints, which are not intended to be water soluble once dry. Some form of solvent is necessary.
I have found old fashioned window cleaner (the kind that contains ammonia), to be very effective.
As far as a container, we have several baking trays that are deep enough to submerge track and 36" in diagonal dimensions. That might work for you.
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
Rich, I wasn't kidding in your other thread when I said take a little tiny hammer ( like a jewlers hammer ) to it. I know a guy that did just that and the ballast broke of in chunks. He managed to save some track but in the long run the glue was holding the spikes to the rails and it no longer would flex at all. I don't know what kind of glue he had used, but water and or alcohol did nothing to it.
He had used foam on the bench and plywood for the risers, where he had lifted the track there was still bits of ballast everywhere. He did a light scrape and got a lot off and on the foam he was able to just push the bits into the foam and make it level again. He used Dap Spackle to fill gouges in the wood and foam.
Experiment with a couple of sections. You may have to wave the white flag.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
BATMAN Rich, I wasn't kidding in your other thread when I said take a little tiny hammer ( like a jewlers hammer ) to it. I know a guy that did just that and the ballast broke of in chunks. He managed to save some track but in the long run the glue was holding the spikes to the rails and it no longer would flex at all. I don't know what kind of glue he had used, but water and or alcohol did nothing to it. Experiment with a couple of sections. You may have to wave the white flag.
When I first used matte medium, it was part of a 1:1 mix with water. Later, I increased the proportion of water for a 1:2 mix and, even later, a 1:4 mix. That early 1:1 mix is like concrete.
I can tell you from experience that water, even with detergent added, will not dissolve matte mediium. But rubbing alcohol will. Here is a photo with unballasted flex track (top), alcohol cleaned flex track (middle), and ballasted flex track (bottom). You can see that the alcohol treated flex track is almost like new.
carl425 doctorwayne I'd suggest using a piece of 1 1/2" ABS drain pipe (the black plastic stuff) with a cap cemented on one end. If you also buy a second cap, you can use it to prevent the alcohol from evapourating while the length of track is soaking or between sessions
doctorwayne
I'd suggest using a piece of 1 1/2" ABS drain pipe (the black plastic stuff) with a cap cemented on one end. If you also buy a second cap, you can use it to prevent the alcohol from evapourating while the length of track is soaking or between sessions
Get a 4" diameter PVC pipe and cut it lengthwise about 2 1/4" in from one side using a bandsaw or a table saw. This will securely hold two 4" endcaps to hold whatever solution you use. Then start scrubbing!
The drawback with using an open container is that the alcohol will evapourate fairly rapidly - that's one of the reasons people use it instead of water for thinning white glue when ballasting. In a closed container where the track is totally submerged, there should be little need to scrub unless you're in a rush. And if you're trying to clean any appreciable amount of track, alcohol loss due to evapouration can become costly. Here in Canada, a half-litre bottle of 99% alcohol was, iirc, six or seven bucks. The best that Rich can hope to find Stateside, though, will likely be 90%.
doctorwayne Here in Canada, a half-litre bottle of 99% alcohol was, iirc, six or seven bucks. The best that Rich can hope to find Stateside, though, will likely be 90%. Wayne
Here in Canada, a half-litre bottle of 99% alcohol was, iirc, six or seven bucks. The best that Rich can hope to find Stateside, though, will likely be 90%.
I like to grill chicken leg quarters on a rotisserie. But, the skewer piece is 3 feet long, and soaking it to remove the burned on stuff is awkward.
So, what I do is wrap the skewer in paper towels, and then keep the towels damp. Alcohol will evaporate faster than water, but it's a cheap and easy thing to try out and see if it works.
I like the rain gutter, though. It's flat, so you only need to fill it up to the level of the track. The PVC pipe is round and will take more alcohol to cover the track.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
In my experience removing hardened ballast from recycled flex track is primarily physical work involving knives, small chisels, wood popsickle sticks, and finger tips - whatever works. Spreading old newspapers on the floor should be sufficent for that.
Dave Nelson
dknelson In my experience removing hardened ballast from recycled flex track is primarily physical work involving knives, small chisels, wood popsickle sticks, and finger tips - whatever works. Spreading old newspapers on the floor should be sufficent for that. Dave Nelson
I filled the bathtub up with hot water and some Dawn and left it soak all nite. The ballast and glue came right off, I put a rag in the drain and left the water drain and reclamed all my ballast too. Just make sure you clean the tub out or you may get the funds cutoff for the next RR project. Jim.