The original thread I talk about

Here is the original thread  I mentioned above from Train Board http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?111157-Layout-Track-Cleaning-Methods/page5  I'm posting it here so it's easier to find it

Also, if anyone has access to the 764 Helpful Hints and can repost it here (if it doesn't violate TOS) please do so.  Mine is buried in the pile of boxes still in the garage and it will be awhile until I can get to them 

Steve

I thought I would jump in with my 2 cents.

Everyone has their own method of cleaning track to ensure smooth running of locos. All will swear by their method as being the best. With the exceptions of WD-40, Goo gone, or oil, they will all work to get smooth running. One of the best appears to be the gleam method, but is labor intensive compared to No-Ox and No-Ox will last just as long or longer with much less effort.

Before I continue, IMO there is something very important that most model railroaders have missed.

For those that may not know, Linn Wescott was a famous model railroader who was an editor of Model Railroader for 16 years. In an article from '764 Helpful Hints for Model Railroaders' 1965 - third printing, 1970, he covers the subject of track cleaning vs. treatment, and is what clued me in to the use of NO-OX. The article is too long to post, (almost a full page). This is sage old advice, but still accurate with the exception of No-Ox’s evolution into a paste form. I consider this article the best advice on track that I have ever seen, bar none.

I have posted my experiences with NO-OX for the benefit of other model railroaders on other forums besides this one. I was met with a lot of acceptance, but also a lot of resistance. The resistance all came from those who have NOT tried NO-OX. I couldn’t understand resistance to the use of a product that works as well as it does, and it finally hit me. Linn Westcott’s article was last published in 1970. With the exception of those that have read the article, this information has been lost to the model railroading population. Without this information, the majority of modelers had to develop a way to get their locomotives to run smoothly. The answer to the problem was to clean track - RELIGIOUSLY, RELENTLESSLY, and OVER and OVER again. In 1980 his article would have been out of print for 10 years. Without Westcott’s information, the practice of cleaning track on a regular basis became an accepted part of model railroading. A modeler who has been doing it for 29 years (since 1980) could be called an expert on smooth operations, and many have published their experiences with nice shiny track. A modeler with 29 years of experience, who gives advice, is to be reckoned with seriously. So many of them have published or posted their experiences that it has become gospel. Unfortunately, they may have missed the key information in Westcott’s article. I ACCEPTED THE GOSPEL, AND CLEANED MY TRACK WEEKLY, LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE.

Any relatively new model railroader who suggests that track cleaning is not necessary would naturally run across an “expert” who would scoff at this “new technique”. I believe this is why I ran into resistance. The funny thing is it’s not new. Linn Westcott’s article was first published in 1965, and I suspect that he tried NO-OX a few years before that. That would make the “new technique” 45 years old, and it still works, even on the newer track, DC or DCC.

I applied No-Ox to my track 5 years ago and have not had to clean my track since then. I bought a quart of it back then, but only used about a ¼ teaspoon on my 700 feet of track. I had so much left that I started giving away samples. Those sample giveaways resulted in many testimonials from amazed and happy users. A few years later I contacted Sanchem (the maker of No-Ox), and told them about my results, and the results of others. At the time there was no mention of its use in model railroading. They revised their site to include my testimonials and my application directions and can be seen here by scrolling down to paragraph 9:

http://www.sanchem.com/aSpecialE.html

Those same directions are included in every container sold by Bar Mills. Art Fahey told me that he has been using No-Ox since the 70’s and that his N gage layout runs like a watch. He also mentioned that he couldn’t understand why more model railroaders weren’t using it. IMO it’s because of Linn Wescott’s lost article.

I have been keeping a running record of testimonial results that can be seen here:

http://www.nscale.org/forum/showpost.php?p=171276&postcount=1

One final note. To my knowledge, EVERYONE that has properly applied No-Ox has nothing but GOOD things to say about its use. The only bad comments come from those who HAVE NOT TRIED IT.

What is NO-OX?

OK what exactly is NO-OX?  Is it a liquid or a paste?  How do you apply NO-OX to your rails?  

I am interested in this product.  Where is the best place to buy this product?  Bar Mills?

Thanks,

Tom H

I guess I should have posted Sanchem's link

@ Tom No Ox "is a rust preventative metal treatment" per their website http://sanchem.com/ox.html

It looks and feels like a grease - although it's something else.

Application from the Sanchem site (#9) http://www.sanchem.com/aSpecialE.html

If you have gunked up your track with plaster, glue, or oil, you should remove any of these contaminants prior to NO-OX-ID application. The method of applying NO-OX-ID to rails is as follows:

1. Use a mild abrasive such as fine sandpaper or a brite boy on all rails to remove any oxidation.

2. Wipe all rails with a rag and alcohol to remove any dirt and fine particles.

NOTE I did NOT do 1 (brite boy) or 2 but used MS instead. If your track has some stubborn areas I would use 600 or greater grit sandpaper

3. Vacuum all rails to ensure cleanliness.

4. Put very thin smears on your finger and rub it on your rails. The total amount of NO-OX-ID “A SPECIAL” that should be applied to 500’ of N scale track is about ¼ teaspoon.

5. Run all your locomotives (no rolling stock yet) over your entire track. You may notice some wheel slippage, but this ensures that all wheels get treated with NO-OX-ID 

NOTE - it was brought up in a reply to this that #6 & #7 are in the wrong order for best results.  It's not detrimental but I'll leave it this way here as this is how it is posted on the Sanchem site - Steve

6. Remove all locomotives from track and wipe all rails with a clean rag to remove any excess product. Don’t scrub, just

7. Wait 24 hours.

8. Run trains and forget about cleaning your track except for occasional light vacuuming.

If you still have a slippage problem, you may have too much on loco wheels. Clean off excess with a clean rag or Q-tip.

As to where to get it this is from the black gunk thread (p7)

When anyone who wishes to use this needs to be sure they have the correct product. NO-OX-ID A-SpecialBar Mills is repackaging it and selling it under their label. You can get it from many places including MRH sponsor Walthers http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/171-226 Their label is a little different but it's the right stuff

Also, there are several guys selling it on E Bay in little pillows that are the right size for most layouts. These are going for $4 including shipping. There several guys selling there right now in the 2-4 oz size (a life time supply) for under $8 delivered. There may be a few who ship to the MRH readers outside the US. You can tell it's the right stuff by reading the label for NO-OX-ID A-Special and it will also have Sanchem on it as well. Just enter No Ox for the search.

Steve

It stays on....

@ Eric  the beauty of this product is that it stays on.  It chemically treats the metal surface - the track and wheels.  Once applied I know of no way to remove it.  I suggest that you try a small area - pick your worst area - and see how it performs for you.  If you are the first one I know of that doesn't like it then you need to work on your worst area still and didn't hurt your most favorite.  

As a side note, not at Eric but in general, No Ox (or any other product) will not fix bad track work or wiring. If your track and pick up problems are strictly a cleaning issue then No Ox is for you

Steve

No-Ox is prime stuff

Thanks, Steve for keeping this alive.  I have some postings in the Black Gunk thread.  Anyone reading this should read thru the other two threads Steve referenced.

The jury's not out for me on this one.  They came back instantly with a unanimous "YES"!  All I'm doing is my own "extended usage life testing".  As far as I'm concerned, I'm not going to monkey around with success.

I bought the pint cans direct from Sanchem.  I suspect my rails used maybe .01% of the can.  But I spent $16 to get my trains running superbly, and it was money well spent.  Now I am using the other 99.99% around the house whenever I have an electrical problem, such as the trailer hitch electrical plug/socket on the car.

I've given away a lot of it, too.  Three other friends have already applied it, with the same perfect results.

So far, NOBODY has anything negative to say about operating with it afterward.  To-date, it's 100% success.

One note - it appears it is quite helpful to do the locomotive wheels.  DO NOT FORGET to do that part.  I'm attempting to do some testing to see if all we need to do is the wheels, and maybe not the track.  But this is just a hypothesis at this time.  An experiment.  "Professional driver on a closed course.  Don't try this at home." 

So when you buy your No-Ox-Id A-Special, (note I said "when", not "if") go ahead and wipe a film on all your track and all loco wheels.  You'll be glad you did. You'll be happy.  You'll be ecstatic.  You'll be tickled pink.  You'll be tickled several shades of pink simultaneously.

Observation and questions

I have used No-Ox for many years, but have been applying it to only portions of the track, not the whole track. This "spot" concept came about after discovering No-Ox.  As I would scenic and ballast portions of the old layout and then cleaning that section of track, I would apply No-Ox to it.

For whatever reason, I came to believe (or I heard) that the trains would carry the No-Ox around the layout, and for the most part, that seems to be true.  But it appears from the thread that I am violating 2 guidelines:

1. Apply it to all the rails - am I reading your posts correctly?
2. Wipe it up after application

I have done neither. 

I can see the benefit to applying to all of the track, since MOST of the layout performs well, but some sections less so.  I haven't addressed those sections simply because I know the scenery crew is moving in that direction anyway, but here is the motivation to just coat the all the rails now.

What is the harm in not wiping it up?  Attraction of dust?

...oh, and by the way, count me as a satisfied customer.

Milt

Steve ->  6. Remove all

Steve ->   6. Remove all locomotives from track and wipe all rails with a clean rag to remove any excess product. Don’t scrub, just

7. Wait 24 hours.

Steve,

  I seem to recall 6 and 7 being in reverse of what you mention.  Leave it on for 24 hours then wipe off.  Did I originally read it wrong?  I can't remember where I saw that.

-SeanM

Good catch Sean

I had just cut n pasted those from the Sanchem site.  I'll drop them a note to see if it can be changed.   But I did let it dry 24 hours and then wiped up any excess.  Only the desired film had dried by then and the extra blobs were still wet so cleaning them up was easy.  It just used a clean cloth (old tee shirt), a couple of Q tips and a few tooth picks as needed.

And Kevin is absolutely correct that doing the track is only half of the battle. Doing the locos is a must.  BTW Kevin it was your last post that I was going to reply to that had me feeling that we were high jacking the original thread from the intended desire and start this thread instead.

@ Milt Yes the locos will spread the No Ox around and is half of the reason for doing so but you really want to take a total system approach in the application.  If for no other reason you really need to start with good clean track before applying the No Ox. 

In terms of not wiping it up the globs can look unsightly.  They can also collect in non desired areas such as switch point were in can impact performance.  Personally I would give the the whole thing a good cleaning, I use MS, and then apply the No Ox again to ensure complete coverage, especially since you have seen the results of using it.

Steve

Put a section of test track on a board.

"I would have no problem of giving this a try. But I would like to be able to remove it, if it is a fail. I run my track dry and the room is dust free. Most track has been up for well over 5 years now and running well."

Eric, I would suggest that if you are not sure, put a section or two of flex track on a 2x4 and treat it and the wheels of one locomotive with the no-ox.  The clean your layout, and run the locomotive on the test track.  leave it alone except for dusting and when you need to clean your layout again, check to see how the no-ox treated test track is doing.  If it doesn't work, you will have wasted one or two pieces of flex track.  If you don't want to gamble on a nice locomotive, pick up a used Athearn Blue Box loco at a swap meet for under $20.00 and sacrifice it to the No-Ox.   

A No-Ox observation...

I noticed something reading all our posts.

1)  Nobody's had a bad experience with No-Ox.

2)  Nobody's reported even a "medium"  or "mediocre" experience with No-Ox.

3)  Anyone who's had a chance to try it seems to only have superlative comments.

Certainly No-Ox isn't the only game in town, but it sure seems to be a great one.  It would seem that for someone who hasn't tried it yet, the risk is minimal.  The hardest part is probably finding the place to buy it from, and that's not so bad.

Russ's suggestion above is a real good one.

I'd suggest not leaving it on the tracks or the wheels.  When you first see it you'll tell yourself "it's just grease!!".  It's actually whatever chemicals Sanchem wants to include, and they put it in a type of grease as a carrier.  Whatever it actually does is between it and the metal parts, but you don't want to leave the grease carrier as it will hold anything loose that floats into it like dust, lint, fibers, cat fur, loose scenery material, etc.  Wipe it on, wait the 24 hours (or more) and wipe it off.  Wipe off using a dry cloth or paper towel.  Don't use a solvent.

I'm not clear on the "waiting time".  Not knowing the active constituents of No-Ox I don't think we can tell.  If anyone is knowledgeable of this, please let us all know.  I suppose it could be tested by having 3 sets of tracks and locos - one gets an application that is immediately wiped off, the second waits 24 hours before removal, and the third perhaps 3 days.  Maybe even a 4th where there is a second application after 2 days.

But I'd rather just spend the time on my trains!

brass drivers?

Can anyone comment on the use of no-ox on brass steam loco drivers?  I have a couple older models with brass drivers, and the biggest issue for me is the difficulty in getting them clean enough to conduct properly.  Would a no-ox treatment solve the problem, and leave them running as well as newer engines with nickel silver tires?

I'll let you know tomorrow

We have an old Atlas S-2 at the club, and its wheels were originally blackened, but the wheels have been worn to raw brass.  I applied No-Ox to its wheels on the weekend, and I will be using it tonight, so I will be able to see if it runs well without cleaning. 

This weekend we will be having an ops session, and I intend to use that switcher to run the West Yard job.  Some of the tracks there have been treated with No-Ox and some haven't so that will also allow a comparison of the effect of the application on the track as well.

So far so good

I was out at the club last night and did get a chance to run that switcher with the brass wheels.  It is running extremely well thus far.  At one point it stalled running down the main from the one end of the yard but it turned out someone had derailed at the other end, so it was a power interruption.  I also had it get stuck on a little-used and maintained yard track behind the engine facility, but that yard only has rudimentary wiring and it seemed to get stuck at a rail joiner, so it may have been a wiring issue.  Other than that, I was running hither and yon for over half an hour without any problems at all.  I also got out a P1K Budd car which had also been run to the point of brass wheel treads showing.  It had been treated with No-Ox earlier in the evening, and I took it down the branchline.  Even on the one helix which had not been cleaned in some time it never stuttered or stalled anywhere.  Color me impressed.

We applied No-Ox to our entire locomotive fleet's wheels last night and we will be operating on Saturday, so we will be able to see just how well this works then.  We did have some engines spinning their wheels trying to push or pull trains up grades.  We will be wiping as much of the track we can whenever we have time to get the excess off, and then we will be able to make a better judgement of how effective the No-Ox is over time.  So far, though, it seems to be working as well as others have said.

I'll have to give it a try

I would love to learn that my local hobby shop carried No-Ox.  I definitely want to try it, as anything I can do to reduce dirty track issues is definitely a GOOD thing!

I got my OxGuard at my local

Operating Session Update

We had our operating session yesterday, with No-Ox applied to all the locomotive wheels.  I did see a Budd car stall at one location a couple of times, but I as I understand it, that part of the mainline was not cleaned properly before the session and No-Ox was not applied to that trackage, so I will chalk it up to brass wheels and oxidized track; we will clean that area and see how it runs for our open house in a couple weeks.

I ran my brass wheeled switcher for 6 hours yesterday (yeah, our operating sessions are pretty long on the Sudbury Division...) and it only stalled once, right in the same area as the Budd car mentioned above.  That area will have its wiring upgraded over the summer, and I think that will cure the stalling (needed more feeders, and unpowered frogs, etc.)  In the yard it never even hiccupped once, and I never saw anything else stall anywhere.

Now before the trumpets blare in a fanfare salute to total success, I have to point out we had a hellish time getting trains up our helices.  Even with a couple pusher engines (5 units instead of the normal 3) we were spinning all the way up the Romford helix with one maximum length train.  It also started exhibiting erratic operation including shutting down for no reason, losing throttle control and even starting to back up by itself a couple times after we had stopped it.  We have no explanation for that behavior, and can't link it to the No-Ox, but the spinning wheels didn't help.

We are going to wipe off the excess No-Ox over the next couple of weeks in an effort to get things running better for our open house.  We are hoping that once the excess is removed we will still have reliable pick-up, but that remains an open question.  Things like Wahl oil and Rail-Zip are basically oils which inhibit arcing, and it is possible that the greasy carrier of the No-Ox is acting in the same way.  How it will behave with the excess grease removed is the question.  If it can't be removed enough to prevent the excessive wheel slip and still do its job we will be back to square one.

Wipe it dry-

Jurgen-

Glad to hear of your success!  Just a comment - when I apply the No-Ox, after the 24 hour time I wipe the rails and the wheels dry.  Just with a dry cloth.  I kept turning the cloth to have a clean area to wipe with.

I didn't do this the first time, and just as you experienced, I had significant wheel slipping pulling upgrade.  After re-wiping to take more off the surfaces there wasn't any slipping.  The locos still ran perfectly.

The metal surfaces feel very smooth after the application and wiping.  But it seemed that if I could feel any oily or greasy film there was a traction problem.  Wiping it as much as possible seems to have resolved that.  I found that when they felt dry to the touch the locos still performed well electrically, and also performed properly mechanically.  And by "metal surfaces", I mean both the track and the wheels.

Over a month now

We started putting No-Ox on the track just over a month ago now, and have had one operating session and an open house under our belts.  I can say that pickup is virtually flawless now, just about everywhere, and our old friend the brass wheeled Alco is still picking up perfectly.

There is a downside though.  We have several helices, and we found trains were really struggling on the grades after we applied the No-Ox.  In some cases, we never actually applied the No-Ox to the helix in question, so the stuff must have been transfered there by the wheels of the equipment.  We have been wiping down the track everywhere to remove as much of the greasiness as we can, and that has improved traction.  We found trains which could be pulled with 3 diesels needed 5 or more at first, and still spun their wheels all the way up the grades.  Now those same trains can be pulled with 4 units with less slipping.  We are hoping that we will be able to get them back to 3 units at some point, but only time will tell.

We will have another ops session next week, and then we intend to shut down for the summer for construction.  The real test will be in September when we start up operations again.  We are intending to leave the layout's track alone in the meantime and see how it runs without the usual thorough track cleaning at that point.

What is "MS"

Ok Steve,

I see two references to using "MS" in the threads. I have no idea what "MS" is. Can you please

enlighten me?

Rob Teed

MS = mineral spirits

Milt

MS = mineral spirits

Great, guess I better start wiping up the mulligan stew.

Ah, yes, Mulligan Stew

That was the hobo's windfall - when the cowcatcher did not function well

MS = Mineral Spirits

Successful update - 3 months and running --- and running nicely.

I should say, 3 months and still running perfectly.  Last night pulled my stuff out of storage where it's been sitting since February.  Set the locos on the track, DCC, gently turned the throttle, and each one started moving without hesitation, at a very slow speed, and increased as-desired.  Ran 'em all evening without ANY headlight flicker.  I applied the No-Ox-Id just before New Year's.  Ran 'em on and off until late Feb after  a local show, where I've said above that they ran just awesome during the show.  So they sat in the box until last night and then again ran perfectly.

So far so good.  I'll keep updating periodically.