Cleaning Micro Trains Plastic Wheelsets

[conrad]

I've discovered that almost all my freight car wheel sets are heavily encrusted with a silver colored dirt.  My guess is that this is the result of many years of running on N-Trak layouts.  Now that I don't go to those events any more and I run the cars on my small home layout, I'm getting "cross" contamination.  This is a pain, especially since I've been getting more into using sound decoders (a pandemic sanity remedy). 

Question is: Can I safely clean Micro Trains wheelsets with an ultrasonic cleaner?

I'm thinking of getting the small iSonic D3800a from Amazon.

Conrad

[conrad]

Reply from Micro Trains enquiry:

"... our plastic wheels should be fine in an ultrasonic cleaner just as long as it doesn't (sic) come in contact with any solvents."

Conrad

[Angus Shops]

I sort of gave up on cleaning the wheels as a surprising number of my wheel sets were old ‘pizza cutter’ sets, even after all these years, and were due for replacement. For about $1.00 per car shiny new wheels seemed like a reasonable investment. But my fleet is relatively limited compared to many, and the particularly dirty pizza cutters were only a subset of that.

[peteski]

Reply from Micro Trains enquiry:

"... our plastic wheels should be fine in an ultrasonic cleaner just as long as it doesn't (sic) come in contact with any solvents."

Conrad

I'm really surprised at that response.  MTL trucks and wheels are molded from POM (slippery engineering plastic like Delrin or Celcon) which is unaffected by all the solvents we use in our hobbies (alcohol, Naphtha, Lacquer Thinner, Acetone, Methylene Chloride, MEK, etc., etc.).  In my experience it is perfectly safe to use those (strong) solvents on MTL trucks and wheels.

Plastic wheels seem to accumulate more gunk than metal (someone suggested because of static electricity). My wheel cleaning rig should work well on plastic wheels.

[John]

Plastic wheels seem to accumulate more gunk than metal (someone suggested because of static electricity). My wheel cleaning rig should work well on plastic wheels.

I do something similar .. for boxcars, you could also run the wheels through some dishsoap water .. then onto the rig like you have ..  don't add water to a loco though

[conrad]

I do something similar .. for boxcars, you could also run the wheels through some dishsoap water .. then onto the rig like you have ..  don't add water to a loco though

Yes, Yes, I've used the paper towel with back and forth with GooGone, Alcohol, etc. for both locos and cars.  Works great for locos because of the spinning wheels.  For cars, not so good.  Rolling them back and forth generally does not remove the crusted on dirt.  My one true technique is rubbing each wheel with a toothpick to literally flake off the crud.  Very time consuming.

I'll buy a cheapo $40 ultrasonic cleaner on Amazon and see how it goes.

Conrad

[peteski]

I use alcohol with my cleaning-track contraption. Yes, it works well with locos for the reason Conrad mentioned, but I also clean car wheels.  But those are metal wheels (in illuminated passenger cars). I clean those to minimize flicker.  I seldom clean plastic wheels.

[nkalanaga]

I assume MTL meant "solvents for these plastics", as there are some cleaning solvents, used in some ultrasonic cleaners, that will eat almost any plastic.  I seriously doubt that any of them would be found at home, but in an industrial setting, even a small plant, they could be found.

For some of our common solvents, I'd be more worried about their effects on the cleaner.  Some of those cheap ones might contain plastics that aren't as durable as MTL wheels, or produce sparks, which could ignite flammable vapors.  If the solvent is safe for the cleaner, you should be fine.

[peteski]

Quoting some info from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyoxymethylene .

Solvent welding is typically unsuccessful on acetal polymers, due to the excellent solvent resistance of those polymers.  So the typical solvents a hobbyist would own are safe.

Acetal resins are sensitive to acid hydrolysis and oxidation by agents such as mineral acids (like sulfuric, hydrochloric, nitric, perchloric, or boric acids) and chlorine.

I doubt that any person, even if they had them at home, would attempt to use any of those chemicals for cleaning plastic model train wheels.

[Maletrain]

I would not be too surprised if somebody has boric acid.  It is available at Lowes in 1 lb quantities, and, according to Wikipedia, "Boric acid is often used as an antiseptic, insecticide, flame retardant, neutron absorber,..." 

[nickelplate759]

Yeah, they probably didn't mean any solvent.  After all, water is a pretty good solvent..

[Albert in N]

  I clean my MTL wheels the hard way, removing them and gently scraping off the crud.  However, for over three years I have found that Woodland Scenics Dust Monkeys, plus regular track cleaning, minimize buildup of crud on wheels.  Here is a link with photos:  https://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/video/DustMonkeys

[conrad]

I use alcohol with my cleaning-track contraption. Yes, it works well with locos for the reason Conrad mentioned, but I also clean car wheels.  But those are metal wheels (in illuminated passenger cars). I clean those to minimize flicker.  I seldom clean plastic wheels.

Peteski:

Yes, I rarely cleaned car wheels but during the pandemic I discovered that constant track and loco cleaning only reduced dropouts of my sound locos (w/ caps).  I found that just about all my cars have crud on the wheels.  This is due to years of running on public N-Trak layouts.  I was one who, if no one else wanted to, ran for hours on these layouts.  Most of our members would only run for a while and then go shopping or eating.  Me, I ran trains.  And, no I was not a track hog.  I always asked that if anyone would like to run I would get off.  The end result, now that I'm running at home, are lots of dirty cars.

I have a ten car train with clean wheels that I now run at home and sound loco dropouts have gone down to near zero.  However I face cleaning hundreds of cars!

Albert: I like the Dust Monkey idea.  Maybe installed on the last car would also stop the "bobbing" car effect.

[nkalanaga]

Peteski:  I see one of the solvents for acetal resins is chlorine.  I suspect a lot of modelers have that, in the form of household bleach, and a few might try it for cleaning wheels.  Thanks for the warning!

[Nato]

      I have used an Ultrasonic cleaner, purchased years ago at a Jewelry Supply House to clean MT plastic wheels, the black crud comes off nicely. I have the cleaning fluid brand I first bought with my cleaner. My one exception all the cars with Pizza Cutter Wheels that I regularly took or still do to train shows. Leaving the black Crud Doughnuts on these they run great on code 55 track without buzzing on the ties. Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.