Ballasting, a task which is feared of by many railway modellers across the globe. Welcome to this new blog entry, where I hope to show you a quick and effective method of creating ballasted Code 75 Wooden sleeper track which looks professional and realistic. 

The Materials you will need for my method is as follows. 

Deluxe Materials - Ballast Bond. (Approximately £6.00 Per 100ml.) 
Fine Spray Bottle - Containing Luke Warm Water with two drops of Fairy Liquid. 

Greenscenes Ballast - Codes GS408 (Fine) & GS409 (Semi Coarse)
Large Soft Paint Brush
Tea Spoon
Ballast Spreader. 

Method.

Before Starting, ensure your work area is clear of dust, debris and other items you do not want getting in your ballast, or wetting with the spray application bottle later on in the process. 

Mixing the Ballast.  
We Mix up some ballast using Greenscenes fine and semi coarse ballast, The ballast is Product codes GS408 & GS409 mixed together. Remembering that Ballast is never all the same size. 
You'll Probably see that the ballast shade we have chosen is quite a light shade. This will be weathered and dulled down in due course at a later stage. 

Applying the Ballast. 

Ballast Spreaders are available from many manufacturers and suppliers around the globe, such as Proses and Greenscenes. We picked this one up from a local supplier at a model railway show a few years ago, they all function the same.
This is a simple, yet effective way of ballasting large areas quickly and hassle free. 
Upon Loading the Ballast Spreader, drag it along the rails. It will deposit any ballast in open areas along the 4ft and Cess at the side of the rails. Be careful not to drag the ballast spreader along to quickly, doing so will not allow the ballast to go into all of the areas it is required.  I advise working in small sections at a time when doing Ballasting in this way, theres nothing worse than laying out all of your ballast and then realising you do not have enough Glue half way through! This can lead to all manor of problems, the main one being dust and debris falling into it! 

Remove the Ballast spreader from the rails when the hopper is empty, and you have ballasted all the areas required. Once you've done this, Using a soft large brush, remove the ballast from the top of the sleepers and the sleeper sides, this will give a more realistic appearance.  

Forming the Ballast Shoulder and Neatening up. 
Once you've removed all the ballast from the sleeper tops and sides, I use the brush to just push the ballast down between the sides of the rails so there is no gaps visable of the cork underneath. 
You can also use the brush to pat down the ballast shoulder softly. I am aware that most modern day ballast shoulders are raised above the rails, but at the GCR, this is a different story. 

Tap the Rail head with a tea spoon too when you are happy, this will allow all of the ballast to sit comfortably inside the rails and sleepers, and also remove any remaining ballast off the sleepers. This is a small, yet effective way of removing the ballast from areas it is not required. Ensure your layout is off before you do this, as you don't want to short the power to your railway out! 

Applying the Adhesive. 

When we are ready to apply the glue to hold everything together, there is more to it than just adding the adhesive. 
We start by giving the area we wish to glue a good spray using a fine mist spray bottle, Nothing Pricey or out of the ordinary, many of you will have something similar lying around at home. 
In this mixture, we fill it with Luke Warm water and two drops of fairy Liquid just to break the surface tension of the ballast when the glue is applied, this also allows the glue to flow further. 
When approaching Point-work, the same method can be applied, although be very careful of the switch blades and mechanism. 

When the mixture is fully soaked, it is time to apply the adhesive. The Simplest way we have found, although more expensive is using Deluxe Materials Ballast Bond. This retails around the £6.00 area per bottle, depending on the supplier. If you are working on very large layouts you may be better sticking with normal PVA & Water, I'm pretty sure there is no difference, although this is my preferred method due to the ease of use. 
Each bottle is supplied with a fine applicator nossle,which the adhesive can come out of in droplets, This soaks into the ballast really well, and the dry time for this product is between 6 & 8 Hours in a well heated environment. 


Its important not to touch the ballast whilst it is drying. This can dislodge the ballast, and it is very hard to correct it once it has been touched.  It will be a lot easier to rectify and issues once the glue has dried. 

The Finished Product. 

Once complete, This is how it will look. 
You are left with a nice matt finish, no shines from the sleepers and everything is held into place very well. Eventually the rails and sleepers will be weathered with my airbrush. I will do a tutorial on how I go about that in another blog. 
Here are some images of the finished product. I'd highly recommend this method for beginners its pretty fail safe! 


Helpful links to some of the products I've used can be seen below. 
Ballast Used -     http://www.green-scenes.co.uk/store?productlist-sort=created-desc&productlist-categories=ballast&productlist-itemcount=20&productlist-search=
Ballast Spreader (Example) -      https://railsofsheffield.com/products/33597/proses-pbs-ho-02-oo-gauge-ballast-spreader-car-w-shut-off-and-height-adjustment?gclid=CjwKCAjw2uf2BRBpEiwA31VZj_Tc8IOAWaiuycYyTd8lTqId7yqmgOlP8csNY7N0IdWAA7z0FLTVFxoCT6YQAvD_BwE

Deluxe Materials Ballast Bond 100ml -     https://www.track-shack.com/oo-gauge-railways/adhesives-1/deluxe-materials-ad-75-ballast-bond-liquid-adhesive-100ml-gm_dlad_75-2

Thanks for reading, Hopefully this will help many people get used to ballasting in a different way.

All the best

Michael Sutton & Kirsty Beardmore.