# What can I use???



## daveh219 (Sep 16, 2012)

To make a long story short...I have for the past 5 yrs. been a constant on the S scale area, having worked on my 50-60 yr old Amerian Flyer post war engines. One of the things that was a sure thing "over there" was the use of Radio Shack contact cleaner.

My question is how the smaller N scale engines would respond to the contact cleaner??? Does anyone else use this stuff?? If not, what do you use???


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## Viperjim1 (Mar 19, 2015)

I don't use contact cleaner I use isopropyll alcohol 90% or above. I've used contact cleaner before and melted the plastic on the drivers. Some is comparable with plastic but what plastic types is the question.


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

*Contact cleaner*



daveh219 said:


> To make a long story short...I have for the past 5 yrs. been a constant on the S scale area, having worked on my 50-60 yr old Amerian Flyer post war engines. One of the things that was a sure thing "over there" was the use of Radio Shack contact cleaner.
> 
> My question is how the smaller N scale engines would respond to the contact cleaner??? Does anyone else use this stuff?? If not, what do you use???


daveh219;

I'll second the recommendation not to use contact cleaner. If your contact cleaner is many years old it may contain Carbon tet, which has been taken off the market because it is very dangerous to your health. Even newer contact cleaner is too strong and may damage N-scale equipment. Alcohol is a good general cleaner. but keep it away from the paint on locomotives. Many N-scale cars and engines are factory painted with alcohol-based paint. Getting your cleaning alcohol on the paint job could damage it. You didn't say what you were thinking of cleaning with the contact cleaner. Locomotive wheels, gears, rails? 
Wheels can be cleaned by running one of a loco's trucks up on an alcohol soaked paper towel or cloth handkerchief, draped over the rails. The truck not on the towel provides power to spin the other truck's wheels against the towel, cleaning them.
Manually turn the loco around to clean the other truck's wheels. Rails can also be cleaned with alcohol applied with a cloth run along the rails. Gears, and other mechanism parts can be cleaned with alcohol on a Q-tip. 
Another thing I have used successfully to clean rails and wheels is LPS-1. This is a non-greasy cleaner and light lube that is electrically conductive. Wiping some on the rails and wheels improves their conductivity a lot. LPS-1 also keeps things cleaner once applied. Grainger.com is one source for LPS-1. NOTE: There are three varieties of LPS. LPS-1, LPS-2 and LPS-3. Only LPS-1 is conductive. It is the only one that will work as a track/wheel cleaner. I use a "Brite boy" track cleaning block. I clean the crud off the brite boy with LPS-1. This puts some of the LPS-1 into the brite boy, which distributes a super thin coat on the clean rails. This helps keep them clean, and conductive longer.

Traction Fan:smilie_daumenpos:

Photo below shows a can of LPS-1 and a Minitrix wheel cleaner. (The thing with the blue and white stripes.) This is a very hady gadget for cleaning wheels the easy way. Just set the wheel cleaner on the track, and hold the locomotive's wheels against the brass brushes on the top. The wheels spin and the brushes get them shiny, fast.


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