Bullfrog Snot Liquid Plastic Traction....I'd like your comments on this product...

[Night Train]

Anybody ever use it? How good is it? Any negatives?

[Larry]

Anybody ever use it? How good is it? Any negatives?

Always wanted to try it, but it's tooo expensive & w/my shaking hands I would worry about getting to much on a wheel at a time & have bumps, etc.

[bigredva]

It's pretty good stuff. I put it on my Spectrum heavy mountain and it was able to pull 17 more 40' hoppers up and through my 2% helix. However, that was the best example... All my locos benefited but most were only 3-7 cars more. All in all, I recommend it!

[TrinityJayOne]

I would highly recommend having a read of this thread on the topic of N scale grades, as one of our members gave this stuff a go and was kind enough to demonstrate his results with video. That's towards the end of the thread but the whole thing is good reading!

[Oh5oh]

I've snotted a number of my Spectrum and Genesis steamers, and it's improved their ability to pull longer trains up my 2.5% grades significantly. I highly recommend it. It's really pretty easy to apply, and if you mess it up, you can pretty easily remove it with a hobby knife and try again.

My advice is to apply it to the second set of drivers on a steam locomotive. Leave the front wheels untreated to keep good electrical pickup, but if you snot any wheels in the "back half" of a driver set, it tends to create a fulcrum and the front of the locomotive pulls off the rails on curves.

Jim

[Espeefan]

I tested a pair of Athearn RTR SW-1500's and got between 25-40% improvement in tractive effort, depending on what I was doing. I use it on steamers and have had good results. Worth it. One jar is all you'll ever need. On HO locos apply it with a paintbrush instead of a toothpick.

[D&J RailRoad]

I'm kinda wondering how this will effect the loco motor, especially those running off of DCC. The additional traction will cause additional load on the motor which means higher current draw on the decoder.

[AyTrane]

You bring up a valid point, but just be sure not to overload the locomotive, as you could damage the decoder or even the motor by putting so much more stress on everything.

I put it on my Blackstone locomotives and they do quite well up grade with six - seven cars on a 3%. I don't push my locomotives to the limits, I just wanted less slipping when going up grade, it makes things look and sound more realistic.

Good luck!

[TrinityJayOne]

if you snot any wheels in the "back half" of a driver set, it tends to create a fulcrum and the front of the locomotive pulls off the rails on curves.

This is a fantastic point. I had this happen with the used GS4 I bought that had traction tires on the rear. I don't know if it was due to being a Kobo Custom job or not but the front of the engine just refused to stay put. It bounced around like mad in corners, and the more you pulled the worse it was, mind you it only took about 10 cars to do it. It was just poorly balanced, you could make the front lift up with just the lightest press of your finger on the cab roof.

Another thing to consider is that our trains don't have differentials, so tight corners may prove to be bumpy as one of the wheels is going to try and slip but can't easily do so, regardless of which drivers you snot. With standard metal wheels this isn't a problem.

[Night Train]

Well....

Instead of buying and using that snot stuff, I just re-aligned those 2 sections where my locos had been having a bit if a problem. Easy to do since I'd built this 'open-grid' system. Just unscrewed a couple of risers here and there, adjusted the track bed a bit, screwed the risers back into the joists, and, viola! No more struggling engines and all is well.

Next up, wiring the switches.

So far, I've been manually throwing the switches and will do so until I figure out where to place the switch controllers. Since my layout is built for walking around it, I decided to get the Prodigy Wireless handheld cab. Wow! How convenient that is for making it to the switches on time all while controlling both trains from the handheld.

I love this new technology. The last time I built this layout 25 years ago, I used the block/section method of powering the track and could only operate one train at a time and was forced to stand in a single location to operate it. Now I can be all over the place.

This is fun. I'll take a video and post it soon. Really cool watching two trains going over/under/next to each other on this layout.

Good times.

And thanks for all your comments/suggestions about the snot stuff.