Model Railroading > Cleaning freight car wheels tip

Last night while working on some freight cars, I pulled a Atlas ACF 4650 hopper out of the box to check if it was up to standards. I mostly wanted to paint the shiny nickle-silver wheel faces, but found the tread to have a build up of gunk on them. After cleaning one wheelset with a q-tip and some alcohol, I thought there must be a better way. So I chucked a buffing bit into my Dremel tool, and then with the wheelsets in the truck, but the truck removed from the car, I set the buffing bit to the tread of the wheels.  I had the Dremel on a medium low speed and then pressed the truck against the work desk top while applying the Dremel bit to the wheel tread. The idea is you want to let the wheels rotate at a much lower rate than the Dremel bit so the friction can clean the tread all the way around the wheel. By applying a various amount of force downward on the truck so the wheel speed is controlled by it's friction with the desktop. The processed worked great and only took seconds to clean each wheel.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Take the wheels off the trucks and use denatured alcohol and a old tee shirt.

That's exactly the way I have been doing metal wheels for years and it works great along with giving you nice shiney wheel treads....

​Larry

One of the neighbors did that to remove the chemical blackening fron Kadee wheels. A little while later he installed Signalling with Occupancy detection that used surface mount resistors on the inside of the wheels, had to toss all the KD's anyways.

Another method is to lay a paper towel on a section of track, add some liquid cleaner of choice (or spray) and move the car along the section of track. That method goes through a lot paper towels though.

stevenlsilva Wrote:
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> Take the wheels off the trucks and use denatured
> alcohol and a old tee shirt.

I started off doing something similar to that, but using the Dremel was much faster and more thorough.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

TCnR Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One of the neighbors did that to remove the
> chemical blackening fron Kadee wheels. A little
> while later he installed Signalling with Occupancy
> detection that used surface mount resistors on the
> inside of the wheels, had to toss all the KD's
> anyways.
>
> Another method is to lay a paper towel on a
> section of track, add some liquid cleaner of
> choice (or spray) and move the car along the
> section of track. That method goes through a lot
> paper towels though.
This is what we do with our equipment on the Sherman Hill layouts. You can get several cars cleaned on one piece of paper towel if you keep moving it slightly.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

Baccrus has a battery operated unit which can be used for cleaning wheels.  I think the company name is something like that but it doesn't seem to google.  Perhaps someone can help me out.

Rick



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/16 17:10 by rschonfelder.

Leave the wheels in the truck. Put a thumb on one wheel to provide a light resistance then use the Dremel with the wire brush on the other.

rschonfelder Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Baccrus has a battery operated unit which can be
> used for cleaning wheels.  I think the company
> name is something like that but it doesn't seem to
> google.  Perhaps someone can help me out.
>
> Rick

Rick

Was this it?  It's sold out now.

https://www.bachrus.com/wheeldoctor.php

Larry


 

I'd be worried a wire wheel would etch the plating on the wheel if not take it off completely. Someone asked for a photo of the buffing bit I used, so......

fbe Wrote:
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> Leave the wheels in the truck. Put a thumb on one
> wheel to provide a light resistance then use the
> Dremel with the wire brush on the other.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

---

A little
> while later he installed Signalling with Occupancy
> detection that used surface mount resistors on the
> inside of the wheels, had to toss all the KD's
> anyways.

Why were they incompatible?

Larry

You can't solder to the KD wheels and the nylon axles do not solder either.

http://www.wireglue.us/

It's $4 for a .3 oz bottle.  Now you can use Kadee or Proto 2,000 wheels, amongst others.

We've been using it for many years at the club.  I didn't know it was still a secret.  

Larry