RMweb Premium Northroader Posted August 21, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted August 21, 2019 You might speed it up a bit if you spread your ballast or whatever, dry, and get it spread nice and level with a dry brush and lightly tapping the board. When it’s to your liking, go round with PVA diluted with about 2-3 times as much water and a little squirt of washing up liquid thoroughly mixed, and applying this with a cheap eye dropper from the chemists. Oh, and plug round any oversize wiring holes in the baseboard before you start or it runs through. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Captain Kernow Posted August 21, 2019 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted August 21, 2019 1 hour ago, Stubby47 said: How deep it the ballast? If the only glue you use is 'painted' on first, it doesn't sound very thick. The correct question here is 'how deep are the sleepers?' C&L sleepers are not very thick, so the ballast comes almost to the top of the sleepers, as per Engine Wood and Bleakhouse Road. 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Captain Kernow Posted August 21, 2019 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted August 21, 2019 1 hour ago, Northroader said: You might speed it up a bit if you spread your ballast or whatever, dry, and get it spread nice and level with a dry brush and lightly tapping the board. When it’s to your liking, go round with PVA diluted with about 2-3 times as much water and a little squirt of washing up liquid thoroughly mixed, and applying this with a cheap eye dropper from the chemists. Oh, and plug round any oversize wiring holes in the baseboard before you start or it runs through. That's how I ballasted 'Callow Lane', in fact, as I used P4 Track Co track, with scale depth sleepers. If anything, I found it took even longer! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Popular Post Captain Kernow Posted October 4, 2019 Author RMweb Gold Popular Post Share Posted October 4, 2019 Now that Scaleforum is out of the way together with the urgency (for now) connected with exhibiting my friends' 'Balcombe & Ouse Valley Viaduct' layout, I have resumed work on 'Bethesda Sidings'. I had previously ballasted the tandem turnout and this week I have been ballasting the main arrival road: I'm using neat PVA, spread between the sleepers, on to which the ballast is sprinkled and then removed, when the glue is dry. I find that I can only manage 4 or 5 sleeper bays at a time, before the glue starts to go off. Today I've been doing more ballasting, starting to weather the cobbled areas and gluing the buffer stops in place. 32 13 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calidore Posted October 4, 2019 Share Posted October 4, 2019 The minute weed detail in the trackwork looks incredible there, CK. The colour of the ballast mix and the track painting really looks the part close up as well, very nice. Adam 5 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Popular Post Captain Kernow Posted October 7, 2019 Author RMweb Gold Popular Post Share Posted October 7, 2019 More ballasting done, the layout is now about 80% ballasted. I've also started to glue some of the scenic details in place. 35 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Brinkly Posted October 7, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 7, 2019 @Captain Kernow 5 1 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold NHY 581 Posted October 7, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 7, 2019 Bloody good show, CK! 3 1 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
KNP Posted October 8, 2019 Share Posted October 8, 2019 Looking great 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turtlebah Posted October 8, 2019 Share Posted October 8, 2019 Absolutely love the work here - excited to see how things progress 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Captain Kernow Posted October 9, 2019 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted October 9, 2019 On 21/08/2019 at 21:35, Northroader said: You might speed it up a bit if you spread your ballast or whatever, dry, and get it spread nice and level with a dry brush and lightly tapping the board. When it’s to your liking, go round with PVA diluted with about 2-3 times as much water and a little squirt of washing up liquid thoroughly mixed, and applying this with a cheap eye dropper from the chemists. Oh, and plug round any oversize wiring holes in the baseboard before you start or it runs through. Thanks for the comment, Northroader, meant to respond before. The reason I use the paint brush method to apply the PVA directly to the baseboard surface is that it gives me far more control over where the ballast ends up. Also, with the thinner depth of the C&L sleepers, this method does work better (for me) than putting the ballast on dry and then applying dilute glue, as you have suggested above. I have used a method similar to what you suggest on my P4 layout 'Callow Lane', where the sleepers are full depth (in that case I initially secured the ballast in place with Johnson's Klear and then droppered dilulte PVA plus a bit of washing up liquid on top of that (once the Klear was dry). The reason for the second method of gluing was because I found that the ballast secured with Klear on it's own tended to be a bit brittle, but with the dilute PVA added, it is now nice and solid. 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Northroader Posted October 9, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 9, 2019 Thanks for the comments, Tim, I agree that dilute PVA does give a much firmer hold on the ballast and track. Then it’s just wether the PVA spread on the board will rise up through the ballast sufficiently to give an even penetration, which, as you say, depends on sleeper thickness. It does look good now it’s down, and I do like those paving setts. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turtlebah Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 1 hour ago, Captain Kernow said: Thanks for the comment, Northroader, meant to respond before. The reason I use the paint brush method to apply the PVA directly to the baseboard surface is that it gives me far more control over where the ballast ends up. Also, with the thinner depth of the C&L sleepers, this method does work better (for me) than putting the ballast on dry and then applying dilute glue, as you have suggested above. I have used a method similar to what you suggest on my P4 layout 'Callow Lane', where the sleepers are full depth (in that case I initially secured the ballast in place with Johnson's Klear and then droppered dilulte PVA plus a bit of washing up liquid on top of that (once the Klear was dry). The reason for the second method of gluing was because I found that the ballast secured with Klear on it's own tended to be a bit brittle, but with the dilute PVA added, it is now nice and solid. I used the same method for the C&L shallow sleeper track. Using traditional pva just didn't seem to work as the ballast ended up everywhere. It takes longer, but i to like the additional control of painting in between the sleepers. 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Popular Post Captain Kernow Posted October 9, 2019 Author RMweb Gold Popular Post Share Posted October 9, 2019 I trial-fitted the backscene to the layout today. The backscene is from a panorama of my own photos, which Andy Y very kindly 'stitched together' using photoshop, adjusted the height to suit the planned layout topography and then muted the colours. He even provided me with two options, a sunny Welsh day and an overcast Welsh day, so today I fitted the overcast day in Radnorshire, which I think will probably suit the layout better. Here are a few views of the layout with the backscene and all the buildings in position. Please bear in mind that the final lighting arrangements for the layout are not yet in place and the photos were taken with what light I had available indoors. 41 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgman Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 Looking rather splendiferious I must say, excellent work by Mr.Y and yourself matey. 8 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sb67 Posted October 10, 2019 Share Posted October 10, 2019 The backscene looks fantastic, how high is it? Steve. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Popular Post NHY 581 Posted October 10, 2019 RMweb Gold Popular Post Share Posted October 10, 2019 A view of Bethesda Sidings by Norman Lockhart. 25 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Brinkly Posted October 10, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 10, 2019 Lovely work CK: the back scene is brilliant. I definitely need to go down the photographic route on my layouts. Best wishes, Nick Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Captain Kernow Posted October 10, 2019 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted October 10, 2019 3 hours ago, sb67 said: The backscene looks fantastic, how high is it? Steve. Hi Steve, the total printed width of the roll is 12", with 11" showing above baseboard height. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Re6/6 Posted October 10, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 10, 2019 55 minutes ago, Brinkly said: Lovely work CK: the back scene is brilliant. I definitely need to go down the photographic route on my layouts. Best wishes, Nick I am/had considered it for Balcombe but for the lengths needed the cost would probably be prohibitive! 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold chuffinghell Posted October 10, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 10, 2019 Superb! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Popular Post Captain Kernow Posted October 11, 2019 Author RMweb Gold Popular Post Share Posted October 11, 2019 2538 from Oswestry shed has just worked a short goods to Bethesda Sidings from Leominster, having called en-route at Kington and New Radnor: 29 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold NHY 581 Posted October 11, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 11, 2019 44 minutes ago, Captain Kernow said: 2538 from Oswestry shed has just worked a short goods to Bethesda Sidings from Leominster, having called en-route at Kington and New Radnor: 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pteremy Posted October 14, 2019 Share Posted October 14, 2019 Is that Hergest Ridge on the back scene? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold NHY 581 Posted October 14, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 14, 2019 1 hour ago, Pteremy said: Is that Hergest Ridge on the back scene? Ah yes! Dear Hergest. Now alas, his many post war discoveries have been forgotten. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now