to bed in gears in a new loco apparently you clean out the manufacturers lube and and use toothpaste instead. run for a while, clean out and replace with grease. from all accounts it makes quite a difference in a noisy gear set. i havent tried it myself but the person who told me says he wasnt having me on and swears it works. anyone out there tried it. sounds a bit unlikely to me but maybe i am being a bit sceptical
Yes, I have tried it and it does work. It just takes some time and you have to run the loco in both directions. It is also necessary to get all of the toothpaste out of the gears. You do need to be sure that you want to do this before you start.
Roger Hensley= ECI Railroad - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/eci/eci_new.html == Railroads of Madison County - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/ =
From what I have read on these Forums, the toothpaste of choice is "Pearl Drops Toothpaste". It appears to be a much finer abrasive. I think that if you go to the Search Community box on the right hand side of this page and type in Pearl Drops Toothpaste you will come up with the correct procedure. From what I remember, you DO NOT run the engine with power applied, you run it in manually, by hand. But I could be mistaken on that.
Blue Flamer.
i always used automotive valve grinding/lapping compound for metal gears. i don't know if anybody uses that stuff anymore for automotive valve work but it used to come in a little double sided tin container with coarse on one side and fine on the other.
grizlump
trainfever to bed in gears in a new loco apparently you clean out the manufacturers lube and and use toothpaste instead. run for a while, clean out and replace with grease. from all accounts it makes quite a difference in a noisy gear set. i havent tried it myself but the person who told me says he wasnt having me on and swears it works. anyone out there tried it. sounds a bit unlikely to me but maybe i am being a bit sceptical
This process (with Pearl Drops toothpaste) has definitely been found to be very effective with Athearn Blue Box and RTR and early Proto (pre SD9) engines. With Atlas, Kato, Genesis, Bachmann/Spectrum, Stewart, Intermountain and Proto (from SD9 onward) with modern Delrin and acetal gears it is less effective and not really worthwhile. All engines can benefit from removing the factory lube and replacing with LaBelle or Hobby-lube products.
Jay
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just checked the search section thanks blue flamer and others. we dont have pearl drops here in NZ but i think i know where i can get some jewelers polish.
trainfeverjust checked the search section thanks blue flamer and others. we dont have pearl drops here in NZ but i think i know where i can get some jewelers polish.
Trainfever.
You're welcome. Whatever you use, just make sure that it is a very fine grit. You only want to polish the gears, not grind them down. Also be sure to flush the polish out really well after you are finished as you do not want to continue the process indefinitely. After all is cleaned and dried be sure to apply a light coat of the appropriate grease and oil where necessary.
Good luck.