DCC concepts Legacy ballast

[37081LochLong]

Has anyone bought any of DCC concepts, Legacy ballast? I recently bought some to try out and saw a website address printed on the label attached to the bottles. I thought I'd have a look to see what else I may find useful...

 

Erm... If you value your marriage don't go to the .com address on the label, put co.uk on the end instead

 

www.legacymodels.co.uk and remember "co.uk" NOT ".com"

[Free At Last]

[Andy Y]

Well I had to didn't I? Purely for research.

 

Anyway I had a look at the ballast a couple of weeks ago when I was in Settle; lovely colour mixes and granularity.

[37081LochLong]

That's the problem, I knew if I mentioned it everyone would head straight for the site to check it out LOL but I couldn't think of any other way of warning people

 

I'm very pleased with the ballast, I bought the brown mix and grey mix in both 2mm and 4mm to experiment with and they all look great. I just wish the bottles were bigger but other than that I like the stuff

[No Decorum]

Hm. Only two shades of grey.

[iak]

[jetmorgan]

Just resurrecting an old-ish topic. I bought a couple of bottles of N gauge ballast from The Engine Shed down at Ford for use on my 00 gauge diorama Wot Halt. I went for the N gauge for use on 00 as the grains are finer and look a bit more realistic. I bought a bottle of the dark grey blend LB 2SE (steam era - dark mix) as I wanted to create the image of a little used, little maintained branch line ballasted with a mix of cinders & ash with old dirty ballast and the dark brown/grey look with the specks of lighter material looked about right.

 

However, while laying the ballast un-glued gave me the look I was after, a very dry matt look once I had dribbled on some drops of PVA mixed with water and a bit of washing up liquid it went very dark grey and the lighter speckles disappeared. Gluing it with the watered down PVA also gave it a slightly glossy look as well. 

 

As I'm returning to model railway building it could be I just haven't got the mixing technique right but the only way I've found to get the look I want is to put some undiiltued PVA between each sleeper and then sprinkle the ballast on to that and press it down, a very time consuming way of doing things. So I'll have to experiment a bit. Also I don't know what this product actually is...are they fine granite chippings or some other sort of stone.

[newbryford]

The glossy look is from the PVA.

Probably through not watering it down enough (Most folks use 1:1, but try using less PVA - even going as far as 3:1 Water/PVA

 

I know of those that add IPA Alcohol in a similar proportion to water, so the mix is 3:3:1 Water/IPA/PVA

 

(You're not getting the glossy look if you use undiluted PVA, as this is "underneath" the ballast particles and not dribbled over the top as usual.

 

Like the Greenscene and some of the Woodland Scenics "ballast", it is not stone based.

[tophski]

Use Mod Podge Matte Medium watered down, dries matte, works well on other ballast so I assume it will work on this.

 

Thanks