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Oxidized brass wheels

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  • Member since
    November 2022
  • 28 posts
Oxidized brass wheels
Posted by Calapooya on Thursday, November 23, 2023 12:27 PM

I have a Proto 2000 loco which appears to have brass wheels.  It has a Digitrax decoder.  I'm having problems with it stopping then starting agains while running.  The wheels appear to be heavily oxidized.  How can I clean the wheels without using an abrasive?

  • Member since
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  • From: Canada, eh?
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Posted by doctorwayne on Thursday, November 23, 2023 7:53 PM

If the wheels are heavily oxidized, some very fine sandpaper should be used to clean them up.  Quite a few years ago, after I built our house, I bought an older house which was next door, and decided to upgrade it, as the owners had parted ways.  When I went down in the basement, I was staggered by the piles of sandpaper, stored there.  I managed to sell most of it to my co-workers but also took a big bunch of really fine paper to a nearby store that sold paint and tools for those who worked on their own cars, and the amount I took filled the entire box on my Mazda pickup...the sandpaper was apparently meant for car paint, and while I did set some aside for myself, I still have a pretty good supply of it left.  A quick look a few minutes ago turned-up a couple sheets of 800 grit,and some more of 1200 grit, and I'm pretty sure that there's a lot more (and even finer) out in the garage, as I did store a lot of it there, as it was also from the same batch that had been in the older house ( The  garage, I'm told was once a house, and now is well over 150 years old.)
if you want a sheet or two of the 1200 grit or, if I can find some even finer stuff, I could mail it to you, if you'll provide your address. 

Cheers, Wayne

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Posted by Overmod on Thursday, November 23, 2023 9:39 PM

I think those wheels started out plated, but they can wear to brass pretty quick.

What I used to use back in the days of DC was a typewriter-cleaning device also used as a jeweler's 'fiberglass scratch brush'.  You arrange to rotate the wheel and press the ends of the fiberglass strands against the tread and flange until clean.  The very tips fracture off as you go exposing clean new surface.

I used a small vacuum cleaner (in my case a Micro-Vac with the toner filter option) to keep the glass dust out of the mechanism.  You can rig a clamp with wires to supply track power to a locomotive, for example by taking off the shell and connecting to the motor or decoder.

In theory you could use 3M lapping film, like you use for track 'gleaming'.  I can easily get this down to 0.3 micron size (which is about 60,000 grit equivalent) which is probably as much surface fineness as you could want short of superfinishing.  And there are very small handheld "electroplating" kits sold for the jewelry industry with which you could restore some kind of 'noble metal' plating over the polished brass tread and flange, and then periodically renew it if it wears again.

For the sake of completeness, do NOT use Brasso polish on these treads.  There is a material that I think is related to fish oil in the formula, presumably to increase time between polishings, that is almost impossible to remove either with rubbing or typical solvents, even with much more pressure and time than you'd want to use on wheeltreads or other parts this size.

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    May 2019
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Posted by BEAUSABRE on Friday, November 24, 2023 3:34 AM

If you disassemble or have disssembled the trucks try the following, get a tub or bucket place the wheel sets there in, cover with white vinegar (a mild acid), let sit, when bubbles stop forming remove while wearing gloves, place under running water, scrub with an old toothbrush and dry wih as rag or paper towels. If you are Canadian, you are allowed to use the excess vinegar in the bottle on your French Fries.I saw this on line, tried it and it worked. BUT, test the container first as the vinegar may attack plastic ones and you are on your own trying to strip old paint from plastic shells, etc. It hasn't affected my plastic bucket and I'm not brave enough to see what happens to shells. 

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Posted by rrebell on Friday, November 24, 2023 5:54 AM

Proto 2000 and brass wheels dose not compute, plated wheels as standard were in use long before the Proto stuff came out. Maybe someone deplated them for some reason, I don't know.

  • Member since
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  • From: Collinwood, Ohio, USA
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Posted by gmpullman on Friday, November 24, 2023 6:29 AM

rrebell
Proto 2000 and brass wheels dose not compute, plated wheels as standard were in use long before the Proto stuff came out.

I'm pretty sure all my Geeps from L-L Proto 2000 are plated brass. I have quite a few worn down. One evening my nephew ran a set of four Proto geeps and one wasn't part of the consist so it never got the 'run' command.

 LL_Proto_Geep1 by Edmund, on Flickr

It had eight skid flat spots on all wheels, pretty deep, too. Somewhere I have photos of it. As any first-gen L-L owner can attest, I have dozens of spares on hand.

 Proto_gear-2 by Edmund, on Flickr

Good Luck, Ed

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Posted by dknelson on Friday, November 24, 2023 10:07 AM

Overmod
What I used to use back in the days of DC was a typewriter-cleaning device also used as a jeweler's 'fiberglass scratch brush'.  You arrange to rotate the wheel and press the ends of the fiberglass strands against the tread and flange until clean.  The very tips fracture off as you go exposing clean new surface.

Those scratch brushes indeed have many uses BUT speaking personally, I advise wearing latex or nitrile gloves because direct exposure to that fibreglass made my hands itch horribly.   Even wearing a dust mask might not be a bad idea.

Dave Nelson

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Posted by Overmod on Friday, November 24, 2023 10:23 AM

dknelson
I advise wearing latex or nitrile gloves because direct exposure to that fiberglass made my hands itch horribly.

Yes, nitrile gloves, and I recommend at least 7mil.  I had not considered the 'airborne' factor, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to have something like an N95 for 'those times'.

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    June 2005
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Posted by Darth Santa Fe on Friday, November 24, 2023 10:36 AM

My Proto 1000 DL-109 also has blackened brass wheels instead of plated wheels.  The problem with the brass is that it does get oxidized and non-conductive, and cleaning the oxidation without taking the blackening off the treads is just about impossible in my experience.  At this point, the treads are bright brass while the rest of the wheel still has its blackened finish, and it actually looks perfectly fine this way.  If you need to try and restore the finish, something like this might work (haven't tried it but I think it's electrically conductive): https://www.amazon.com/Birchwood-Casey-Fast-Acting-Blacken-Antique/dp/B0000C514O?th=1&psc=1

_________________________________________________________________

  • Member since
    November 2022
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Posted by Calapooya on Friday, November 24, 2023 1:49 PM

Thanks for all the suggestions.  I do have some very fine sandpaper but want to avoid creating dirt gathering scratches.  That the loco has wheels originally plated but worn down to brass makes sense.  It was a swap meet purchase so mileage unknown.

  • Member since
    August 2022
  • 115 posts
Posted by Vintagesteamer on Sunday, November 26, 2023 4:38 PM

NWSL makes replacement nickel silver wheels sets that will fix the problem for good.  For the moment, if you have a dremel, put a wire wheel in it on low speed setting and use it to polish the wheel treads.  Sandpaper is NOT a good idea, nor is anything else that can put scratches in the surface.  You want to polish the surface, not scratch it.   Replacement wheels from North West Shortline is the way to fix the problem for good.  

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