Brafferton - 2mm Finescale

What a good idea, especially for areas around tie bars. Thanks for writing this one up for us Tony.

Looks good Tony - I am always caught between the 'spread and spray' and this method, but last time I did similar to this...it's slower for sure...but it looks top notch...make sure your small container doesn't get left out around the home after use though

I think this technique is actually quicker. If you take into account the time poking stray dry ballast around and then cleaning up after gluing with the spray and drop method. I paint the glue (neat PVA) using a No. 1 brush and there is practically no clean up or rework required and I think it looks better, especially in 2mm, as the tamped down ballast has a smoother final texture. Dropping glue tends to cause the ballast to lift a bit before the glue goes off leaving a rougher texture.

 

Keep up the good work.

 

Cheers

Dave

Interesting idea Tony, looks rather time consuming but worth investigating further.

Thanks for the comments guys. The previous ballasting I did was on my son's N gauge layout and that was 'spread & spray'. The clean up afterwards was mind-numbingly tedious!

Interesting idea Tony, looks rather time consuming but worth investigating further.

 

Kris, I don't think there is any way to ballast that is not time consuming (alright, foam underlay, I'll grant you)! This way just makes the cleaning up easier and avoids the damage to point mechanisms and track appearance that spraying with dilute PVA tends to do.

Kris, I don't think there is any way to ballast that is not time consuming

 

To true

Will definately give this technique a try next time... thanks for the step-by-step.

Jon