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N gauge ballast


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Hi guys,

New member here.

I normally use Jarvis ballast on my n-gauge layouts which I think seems a little bit oversize. Someone has suggested using chinchilla dust and I am wondering if anyone has experience of using this and if so what do they think of it?  How easy is it to work with eg weathering and fixing in place?

Alternatively, can anyone recommend a n-scale ballast that "looks right".

I am shortly to start laying track on a new layout and would like to get the ballast spot on this time.

Thank you in anticipation.

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Funnily enough, i bought a tub of "Tiny Friends Farm chinchilla bathing sand" at the weekend, intent upon using it to surface part of my 00 goods yard.  FWIW it strikes me as a good colour for virgin ballast and generally of a very usable size for N gauge.  It looks to be ideal for my application as supplied, but I reckon it would benefit from having the very fine dust sieved out for ballasting.

 

I don't know if it varies much between brands, and have yet to find out for myself how it glues, which isn't a whole lot of help to you really.  But £3-something gets you a kilo of it from any pet supplies shop, so it's got to be worth trying for yourself.

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14 minutes ago, spikey said:

Funnily enough, i bought a tub of "Tiny Friends Farm chinchilla bathing sand" at the weekend, intent upon using it to surface part of my 00 goods yard.  FWIW it strikes me as a good colour for virgin ballast and generally of a very usable size for N gauge.  It looks to be ideal for my application as supplied, but I reckon it would benefit from having the very fine dust sieved out for ballasting.

 

I don't know if it varies much between brands, and have yet to find out for myself how it glues, which isn't a whole lot of help to you really.  But £3-something gets you a kilo of it from any pet supplies shop, so it's got to be worth trying for yourself.

Thank you spikey, that is really helpful and i may well take a trip to the local pet shop and splash out for a bag and do a few tests.  i didn't realise it was so cheap. 

 

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Being close to various beaches I use beach sand. I sieve it to get the right grade before using a watered down PVA to fix it in place. For weathering I use watered down children's paint. 

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