Jeff, IMHO consider the following:
I once had the experience in the late seveties of restoring track on a decent size little set that has two ovals. I used a multiple approach in the following order: * With an extrmely light grade wetted kitchen scour pad rubbed of any rust - make sure to collect up any left over grit - 1 reason for wetting it is that the grit spreads less * If an area was really bad, in a few spots had to use a wetted sand paper * Used track cleaning fluid to generally clean the track * For areas that were still dirty applied copper/brass cleaner to get grime off - there are pastes and liquid forms * Had luck using standard ink and pencil erasers used by school children that can be bought at Wally World or Target's to also remove stubborn grime areas - this is a tedious but great way to clean copper wheels on flyer trains too! I avoided the following: * Dunking the track in any liquid to preserve the paper insulation * Don't using steel wool to clean the track, since the tiny metal bits can wreak havic with electrical motors; there are platic scour pads that are better to use I then touch up painted any black ties that need it... There are rust removers available - maybe someone in the group could comment on the applicability of this stuff to track restoration. Rubber road bed was cake and conducive to mass parallel processing * Dunk all roadbed in soapy water and let soak * General scrubbed and seperate out to dry * Laid out pieces over paper * Picked a shiny Black Krylon paint and spray painted them * They looked great - like absolutely new! * Its about 25 years since and still look great with a little shine But I must tell the truth - the track part was very tedious and boring and I didn't derive much fun from it... ie - never again. My real advice - buy new reproduction track from K-line, its not that much if its just for around the tree. Or look at the Gargraves track (stainless) and mount it to an oval board set for quick set up/split up! When I did my track restoration the K-line track that wasn't avialable we used gargraves for display/storage track on the wall, but wanted the set to have authentic flyer track. Good Luck _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus S-Trains list sponsor: http://www.americanflyertrains.com All the Flyer you desire...books and accessories too! To UNSUBSCRIBE from this list send a note to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
