00 gauge ballasting, what do you think of my efforts?

[Tallpaul69]

Hi there everyone,

Having unexpectedly found myself with the task of ballasting my 00 gauge layout being built by others, and not having done this for many years, I thought I had better do some tests.

So I started by watching several videos and decided that as I remembered a wet mess being a feature of the proceedings, I would reduce the chance of this by using Deluxe Materials Ballast Bond. I thought the expense worthwhile.

 

Below is my third attempt, using scrap track and points, and which is the first one that I am to any degree satisfied with, although I still think I am using too much ballast!

Tools are the conventional ones, (spoons, make up brush, small paint brush ), added to by my own thoughts of a eye dropped for getting ballast into the small areas of points.

 

 

 

I will be vacuuming up the spare ballast but have found the filter on my current old hand vac too coarse to retain the ballast.

 

Constructive comments I welcome, but  just telling me you think my efforts rubbish will not help!

 

My next test will involve some Peco points, which will be the type being used on my build, but I didn't want to wreck good points with my early efforts!

 

Many thanks

Paul 

[griffgriff]

Have to followed the ‘glue the track down then ballast straight away’ approach?
 

There’s lots of ballast on the sleepers still. The little pinky is as useful as a brush to clear the ballast away.  The flange ways will need to be clear too.

 

It’s a case of practise, practise.

 

Griff

[HLT 0109]

Paul,

 

It does look as if you have used a bit too much ballast, and it can be difficult to remove just enough before gluing it in place.  I have found it is worth while really taking time and being very careful.  I lay the ballast between the rails first, leaving some space to brush/push any excess into, then clear the sleeper tops.  I do the outsides of the rails next where it is easy to brush any excess out of the way.  Also best not to do too much at once as it is esily disturbed by a wayward/tired finger or a suddenly released breath!  I have never used Ballast Bond but find that the traditional diluted PVA with a dash of washing up liquid, applied with a cheap pipette after damping the ballast, works well without too much spread of mess.  The main problem I have had when using Woodland Scenics ballast is that it is so lightweight, that even misting the dry ballast with water can disturb it.  In your photos, some areas of the ballast appear to have received more Ballast Bond than other parts.  Small amounts of excess ballast can be removed later by scraping with (say) a craft knife or suitable screwdriver but, how hard it sticks, will depend on what PVA or other glue you use.

 

Harold.

[Pete the Elaner]

6 hours ago, griffgriff said:

Have to followed the ‘glue the track down then ballast straight away’ approach?
 

There’s lots of ballast on the sleepers still. The little pinky is as useful as a brush to clear the ballast away.  The flange ways will need to be clear too.

 

It’s a case of practise, practise.

 

 

I agree.

I find the finger is better than anything else at clearing excess ballast, probably because you can actually feel what you are doing.

Ballasting really does take lots of practise & if I rush, the job looks rushed. It is not a job I enjoy.

 

I prefer a mix of Copydex to PVA. I give it a light coating to hold the ballast in place, then I flood it to hold the ballast more firmly. Flooding it straight away causes some of it to float. One of Copydex's advantages is that you can slice away any excess very neatly & easily with a sharp scalpel.

 

Be patient. Doing small test pieces is a great way to get it right.

[Crisis Rail]

 

MDF Baseboard

 

EVO Wood Glue (white) applied on the baseboard  to sleeper height with a brush. 

 

Lay track at correct profiles to the desired position directly on EVO Glue (avoiding any pointwork and mark out with nails in the baseboard  to guide laying)

 

Sprinkle Ballast (like school glitter)

 

Dry and remove excess lightly with a fine handbrush.

 

Spray Ballast using Railmatch sprays.

 

Drybrush to highlight (optional)

 

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by Crisis Rail

[ColinK]

I agree with Harold. Ballasting is a horrible job, but the key to success is to get the ballast as you want it before applying any glue.  So take lots of time (yes its a real pain) making sure the ballast is off the sleeper tops, there is non on the rails and the flangeways are clear.  Only when you’ve got it perfect do you apply the glue. I do the plain track first and the points only when that has dried.

 

ii’ve used Ballast Bond and found it to be far superior to pva.  Using the long nozzle on the bottle, get it as close to the ballast as you can without touching it, and try and put one drop on the ballast between each sleeper. Watch it slowly spread.  Add more only if you need it. Then add the ballast bond on the outside of the rails until all the ballast is glued.  Work slowly and you’ll be fine.

 

It is best to err on the side of caution, initially use less ballast and less glue, you can easily add more if you need to, but removing stuck ballast is difficult.
 

i suggest you try again on a short length of plain track - you don’t need large areas to practice on. Once you’ve got the plain track to your satisfaction, try doing one point, being even more sparing with the ballast and glue.

 

Looking forward to seeing your next attempt. You will get it perfect. Good luck.

[Crisis Rail]

Must be in the minority - seems effortless - just have to be prepared and work quick - the cooler atmospheric temps the better.

 

Ian

[Tallpaul69]

God evening all,

Here is the latest attempt?

There is no glue applied, so as in the last case I can brush away the surplus ballast.

I am doing this on a tray so the ballast is contained, and the surplus can be recovered.

 

This needs more cleaning up if I decide to glue it, but no sense in clearing away the last grain of ballast if I need to do more work on it before glueing!

 

 

I think i have been mislead by my observation of the current railway, where they do seem to use a lot of ballast!

Looking at layouts in magazines, they do seem to use less, as is the case with my local Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway.

 

Cheers

Paul

 

 

[ColinK]

That’s looking better. There are still a few tiny bits of ballast on the sleepers, I would remove them before applying any glue.

[Trog]

Depends on the sort of track you are modelling, CWR track should have a shoulder off the sleeper ends raised 5" above the sleeper ends on the cess and any wideway sides of the track. Modern jointed is likely to have a similar shoulder as although it is not mandated by standards that is what the staff are used to doing.

 

On traditional jointed track there would only be a small shoulder with no raised section off the sleeper ends. Older track often tended to be neater, gangers were known to use a string line to get a nice straight edge to the ballast. Said edge perhaps even being marked by a line of larger ballast stones.

[RobinofLoxley]

Leaving aside my own very mixed experiences handling ballast, if you look carefully you will see individual pieces of ballast have infiltrated the gaps between adjacent rails, getting into the fishplate runway. This is a tricky area as if you need to leave expansion gaps its hard to stop this happening. I will face this when I reach the point in my new layout, I plan to insert small spacers from plasticard into the gap between adjacent rails just during ballasting. That way I will always have the same gap. I mention it because I know its only a trial but your visible joints have these dodgy gaps.

[ITG]

Following this thread with interest, as I will soon be attempting my first ever efforts at ballasting. I think I’ll play around with a piece of dummy track on a board first.

When it comes to ballasting points, how exactly do folk keep the tie bar area clear of stray ballast? Is it possible to mask it in any way?

I have underboard point motors, with a 10mm hole for the point rod movement in tiebar. Any tips for approach on that area?

[DCB]

It really is a question of looking at old photographs.  The earliest pics I have seen suggest ht sleepers were completely covered by ballast.  By 1900 ish sleeper tops were left clear of the ballast and neat cinder paths created alongside the ballast shoulder for the lengthman to  use while doing his daily inspection of his length. That seems to have continued until the end of steam 1968 ish. After the coming of HSTs ths tracks seemed to be perched on mountains of ballast rails lifted to former platform heights with no thought as to walkways and post 2000 tracks seem to be buried under a carpet of weeds. Sream era Branch lines often had beautifully maintained ballast right up until  closure, even after closure to passengers and sometimes after he track had been lifted. Just like commercially available underlay in fact.    Ballast also comes in a variety of colours, Greys and browns. I had poor results from ballasting, lots of track noise and ballast in the point blades, but painting the black path alongside the track and after it dried  pinning a bit of square dowelling to hold the ballast shoulders in place gave a nice crisp ballast edge.  That said card sleepers on ballast covered track bed a la 1950s models captures the look of 1930s track better than anything I have seen with loose ballast and plastic sleeper track.

[Tallpaul69]

Hi All,

Picking up on the comments in the 3 posts in recent hours:-

1) RobinofLoxley - your comment about ballast in the rail gaps is a fair one. I will have the benefit of track professionally laid, so gaps will be accurate and only as necessary! I agree it is a good idea to plug the gaps in the rails while ballasting.

2) ITG- yes, balasting points is a pain, I did the points on my sample using a medical dropper to get the ballast in the right places and only in minimal amounts. 

On my layout this will be less noticeable because the track will be at a high level c4ft from the floor to give me a realistic lineside view. I am not a great fan of the helicopter view of layouts which do make faults in ballast more obvious.

3) David, you are of course right that the ballast standards on the real railway changed over the years. I have the added difficulty of running my layout in different time periods, so I will need to aim for an in between ballast standard! Probably a bit more than the pre 1968 standard but still with neat edges (I am going to try using masking tape to acheive the edge), but not as much as the current standard.

This will allow me to get away with perhaps having a bit more ballast than strictly i should.

 

I hope to do another trial next week and once I am happy with it , I will post it here for comment(!)

 

Take care, happy modelling

Cheers

Paul 

 

[RobinofLoxley]

9 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

It really is a question of looking at old photographs.  The earliest pics I have seen suggest ht sleepers were completely covered by ballast.  By 1900 ish sleeper tops were left clear of the ballast and neat cinder paths created alongside the ballast shoulder for the lengthman to  use while doing his daily inspection of his length. That seems to have continued until the end of steam 1968 ish. After the coming of HSTs ths tracks seemed to be perched on mountains of ballast rails lifted to former platform heights with no thought as to walkways and post 2000 tracks seem to be buried under a carpet of weeds. Sream era Branch lines often had beautifully maintained ballast right up until  closure, even after closure to passengers and sometimes after he track had been lifted. Just like commercially available underlay in fact.    Ballast also comes in a variety of colours, Greys and browns. I had poor results from ballasting, lots of track noise and ballast in the point blades, but painting the black path alongside the track and after it dried  pinning a bit of square dowelling to hold the ballast shoulders in place gave a nice crisp ballast edge.  That said card sleepers on ballast covered track bed a la 1950s models captures the look of 1930s track better than anything I have seen with loose ballast and plastic sleeper track.

You wouldnt have a picture of the black path and ballast edge at all would you David?

[DCB]

11 hours ago, RobinofLoxley said:

You wouldnt have a picture of the black path and ballast edge at all would you David?

From the web... Not mine.  All ex LMS but cropped  from photos of trains, not "Best Lengths"  Top Rugby - Euston 4 track ex LNWR Main Line near Rugeley  BR days.  Settle and Carlisle ex Midlnd Culgaith BR,   Dumfires Scotland, ex G&SWR LMS days, Stratford SMJR 1965, last train.

 

Edited November 26, 2020 by DavidCBroad

[Nick Holliday]

As the photos demonstrate, the ballast doesn't stop a the end of the sleepers. This cross section through LNWR track of the twenties gives some typical dimensions.

[Michael Edge]

I think the last one is just ash but the photo does show that there was often no ballast in 10ft or more track spaces. The third one is what I usually aim for in my steam era layouts - the first one has too much of a "prize length" look about it.

Not quite finished ballasting on 00 gauge Wentworth Junction - Greenscene 414 glued with dilute pva afte wetting with ipa (isopropyl alcohol).

[RobinofLoxley]

I think that look, both the real railway and the effect above, are worth aiming for. I assume, Michael, you used something as a ballast retainer while waiting for the PVA to dry.

 

I guess that the black stuff might actually be ground clinker from coke manufacture, would have been a good place to hide it and also making an underbed for the ballast platform.

 

The pictures give you a spec for how wide the ballast bed should be - looks like the ballast sits out the same distance as the sleeper from the rails.

 

IMHO ballasting is one of the most important aspects of overall model building, and when you have a lot of track consistency of appearance over the entire layout is worth striving for.

[Michael Edge]

No, I don't use anything to retain it, I run it up to ruler before wetting it with ipa then drop the very dilute pva on with a pipette. I do also add some washing up liquid to the glue as well.

[The Stationmaster]

55 minutes ago, RobinofLoxley said:

I think that look, both the real railway and the effect above, are worth aiming for. I assume, Michael, you used something as a ballast retainer while waiting for the PVA to dry.

 

I guess that the black stuff might actually be ground clinker from coke manufacture, would have been a good place to hide it and also making an underbed for the ballast platform.

 

The pictures give you a spec for how wide the ballast bed should be - looks like the ballast sits out the same distance as the sleeper from the rails.

 

IMHO ballasting is one of the most important aspects of overall model building, and when you have a lot of track consistency of appearance over the entire layout is worth striving for.

The railways of the steam age had tons of ash. clinker, and smokebox char which basically cost them nothing apart from finding a way to get rid of it and moving it from loco sheds etc.  So they used it for paths and fill plus finishing off areas such as 10 foot intervals and 'ballasting' sidings because it tended to be pretty good as a weed suppressant apart from creating what was usually a fairly well draining surface that was easy to walk on.

 

In fact the gradual erosion and neglect of cess paths etc was a noticeable difference that marked the end of the steam age when other materials had to be used instead of the previously free ash etc.

[RobinofLoxley]

On 26/11/2020 at 08:02, Nick Holliday said:

As the photos demonstrate, the ballast doesn't stop a the end of the sleepers. This cross section through LNWR track of the twenties gives some typical dimensions.

Following scale that makes the path area a bit less than 1cm wide, which would be normal to do, but the build-up height is well above what I am working with is just 2mm thick so I will be a bit short there.

 

Ballasting to sleeper top, also normal.