Mark said:
TAC - LOL No I don't clean the little beauty with a dry wall sander, but I do use a 2 inch brass (tooth brush look alike) and a similar stainless brush on it occasionally with some pretty astrigent sovents.....but it seems to shoot better when it's dirty so it doesn't get cleaned too often.mark
My point, which you seem to have missed, is that using the LGB track-cleaner locomotive is the equivalent of using a dry-wall sander on the track - which is why LGB say that it is verboten.
The plating on the LGB track appears to be only about a pathetic 2-3 microns thick, and as Mike Morgan points out, any plating is only as good as its foundation metal and the preparation applied to cleaning it in the first place prior to plating of any kind. Brass is NOT a good metal to nickel plate - it needs a copper plating first. This does NOT appear to be the way that LGB did it.
You would be surprised to learn that even over here in UK we have heard of brass-bristled brushes. Even though many of the inhabitants have dried grass on their roofs, and keep animals, we are steadily moving towards civilisation. Some of us even have electrical lighting in our huts, although it is admittedly uncommon in rural areas, such as my own locale.
Hark! I hear the bell of the approaching dung cart! Is it is our turn to be taking away, or bringing?
tac
Ottawa Valley GRS