Ballast

[Brummyrlb]

I’m so scared of getting the ballast operation wrong that I’m two years on and researching it ! Any help would be appreciated but I have learned a few things which may help others . I’m oo gauge . Firstly , selecting ballast , size and colours . I opted for woodland Scenics and investigated it thus . Place a ruler on white millimetres side uppermost . Drop a pinch of ballast onto the sheet and tap it so the particles come to rest on the edge of the ruler . Now take a photo with a decent mobile . Expand the photo and you’ll see very clearly the average particle size . This revealed for me that the medium woodland stuff is mostly half an inch too large and the fine is mostly half an inch too small .

( I collected some real ballast and measured it )

However , a blend of two parts medium to one part fine looks pretty good .

Colour : I didn’t like any of the colours available because basically they all look ‘too new ‘ . I decided on the colour I wanted and set about colouring it . First method was to mix in some weathering powder by shaking the mix in a margarine tub . A small amount of powder does the trick .

One problem with this is that much of the colour gets washed off in the track wetting process . Initially I abandoned this before discovering that my coloured mix was still a great improvement on the untreated ballast .

Along the way I’ve devised a ballast spreader which works great , and easy methods if removing those particles which adhere to the sleepers and rail sides . Please ask - don’t want to go on too long ! Currently trying variou pva glues on short pieces of track . Sleepers are painted so I don’t want a glazed finish . Track bond anyone ? ? Tried the the ballast powder and I as much as I love some of that company’s products I found the powder virtually hopeless , even mixed far stronger than the instructions . Hope all this is some help !

[Karhedron]

Ballasting is one of the first big hurdles modellers come up against as they move from a trainset to a proper model railway with realistic scenery. Do not despair, you are not the first modeller to ponder these questions and you will not be the last.

 

Your compromise to the size problem sounds sensible. You said that the mix looked fine and this is very much an area of "if it looks right, it is right".

 

Colour is a tricky one. Real ballast gets covered in a right old mix of oil, brake dust, soot, particulates and probably other forms of dirt too. I find the best approach is to apply the ballast first and then weather both the ballast and the track once everything is glued in place. Otherwise you will have clean track and dirty ballast. I weathered my track by mixing up a dilute solution of black, brown and a touch of white paint. I used cheap artists acrylics from the Works. I then applied it using an eye dropper and allowed it to sink in. Many people like to use an airbrush for weathering and I have seen great results so the key is to find an approach that works for you. Here is how the area in front of my N gauge dairy turn out.

 

 

For fixing the ballast in place, I use Johnsons Klear acrylic floor polish with a couple of drops of Tamiya Flat base (concentrated acrylic matting agent) to kill the shine. This was also applied with the eye dropper and allowed to seep into the ballast.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Karhedron

[GWR_NZ]

I am getting to the point where I have to look at ballasting my layout. I too am procrastinating. Currently have Auhagen TT ballast as my preferred ballast (I like the idea of adding weathering powders - which shades do you use?).  As for a ballast spreader I'm looking at making a ballast vacuum

 

 

 

I'm hoping this will solve the problem of "stray" ballast on the sleepers. As for painting the track I've purchased Model Master Tie Brown and will paint the track before applying ballast and then weather. Now to stop procrastinating ( I'm currently testing the track to make sure it all works as expected).

[Brummyrlb]

Thanks to everyone who commented on my ballast meanderings ! I do intend to do a final weathering with an airbrush , but I remain very dissatisfied with the colours ‘straight out of the jar . To date I’ve had some success colouring the ballast by shaking it with a dab of weathering powder . Caution with the work area this is a serious contaminant ! Trouble is , much of the colour is lost in the track wetting process . I’m testing Ballast bond currently , but it does not dry Matt as it says on the tin , glazing my painted sleepers . It spreads wonderfully on a wet bed , but tends to drag the ballast on a dry bed . Maybe I’m doing something wrong? . In the colouring experiments I’ve found that adding water to the powder / ballast mix does improve its resilience to being ‘washed off ‘ , but the business of drying it out is lengthy and it’s less ‘tweakable ‘ .

It’s a case of stirred NOT shaken when tweaking the colours because otherwise the pile gets bigger and bigger but doesn’t change much in shade , the added ballast colour being polluted by the powder already in main mix . Any comments very appreciated .

[Pete the Elaner]

Ballast is fairly easy to apply but getting it to look right is another matter entirely & how weathered you want it can very easily determine the method which works best for you.

You will probably get several different answers, none of which are wrong, but they may not quite achieve the affect you want.

 

I have heard several people who lay the track & ballast then weather the lot with an airbrush. If you want a very heavily weathered, uniform finish then this is fine & there is nothing at all wrong with it. Most track is a little less dirty, for which an entirely different approach is required.

 

I believe it is very useful to lay small lengths of track onto off-cuts of wood & try several different things until you are happy with the finish you want.

[flockandroll]

Karhedron, what sort of adhesion do you get using the Klear on the ballast? Is it a 'solid mass' as PVA would be (IMHO a bad thing due to it's effect on noise transmission)? Is it easy to remove the ballast once dry if you don't like it / need to alter / want to recover the track?

Wonder if it would combine with the use of copydex / carpet tile adhesive to fix the track down? And ballast later. Is this the current version of Klear?

[Karhedron]

I ballasted the layout 5 years ago and there have only been a few grains come loose in the intervening time. It does not set into a hard lump in quite the same way PVA does but seems reasonably secure.

 

I did in fact use copydex to fix the track so no compatibility issues there. This is the more recent Klear that has a milky appearance in the bottle but dries clear.

[DCB]

Ballast has changed over the years.  From being piled over the sleepers in the 1800s to the crisp ballast shoulders and neat cinder paths beside the ballast of the 1900-1965 steam era to the scruffy mess of BR blue to the overgrown jungle of many lines today.  Hardly anyone captures the look of real ballast.   Scruffy edges ruin many steam era ballasted layouts and I have never seen anyone attempt modern neglect with static grass and the like with the occasional rail.  Many steam area locations had a virtually level area of ballast with the sleepers virtually flush with the ballast, more like card sleepers on sundela board rather than ballasted RTR track  The vacuum ballasting looks promising.

[Silver Sidelines]

In my experience applying ballast to look right is not easy.  It requires care which in turn takes time.  If it is a large layout it takes lots of time but as others have said - well worth it.  There are numerous layout threads which talk of months spent applying ballast.  Some people find it tedious - I would say therapeutic - especially in small doses.

 

Ballast is fairly easy to apply but getting it to look right is another matter ..

 

... it is very useful to lay small lengths of track onto off-cuts of wood & try several different things until you are happy with the finish you want.

 

Yes - a good tip - make up some test sections and repeat until you are happy.

 

Test Piece III - Blue Poppy seeds and wallpaper paste

 

Cheers Ray

[ianLMS]

I used Green Scenes ballast - lots of sizes and colours to choose from and easily fixed with Deluxe Ballast Bond or simple PVA/Water/Fairy mix.

 

Their sales speech mentioned that they went out, measured real ballast from a variety of places and graded their ballast to match. Effectively, scale ballast. Their words, not mine, but I was very happy with their ballast products and used them throughout my layout.

 

http://www.green-scenes.co.uk/

[The Johnster]

I will admit to having very scruffy edges to my ballast, despite my mid 50s period when they should be neat and tidy.  But I try to avoid neat and tidy as much as I can because I think it looks more realistic with a bit of mess about the place.  

 

Colour is an issue, and I think mine is too grey for a South Wales layout that would have used limestone ballast from Tintern or Penderyn; it needs a yellowy tinge.  I find most 00 ballast too coarse grained; it is probably fine for high speed main lines but this is a valleys branch line.  I use medium grain N gauge stuff, far too coarse for 2mm.

 

Real ballast gets quite messy in places where locos come to a standstill, and 1950s stations had all sorts of rubbish chucked off the platforms.

[Ian Morgan]

I tried Copydex to stick down ballast once, but when I tried to remove single pieces of ballast that were on sleepers or inside check rails, they were attached to lots of other pieces in a rubbery string that all came out together leaving bald patches. I had to drown the lot in PVA to sort things out.

[Jeff Smith]

I use Woodland Scenics as it is readily available in the US.  I use fine for 4mm and 7mm.  I paint the track first then paint neat PVA where the ballast is to go, ie between the sleepers and on the shoulder of the cork base.  Then sprinkle ballast from a snipped corner of the ballast bag.  Brush dry loose ballast from the sleeper tops then using a dropper drip on the usual diluted PVA.  Let thoroughly dry then apply a wash of diluted acrylic colour all over the ballast and track - this gives a uniform look to the whole thing.

 

For US modellers don't use School Glue as it is washable and will soften when applying the diluted acrylic wash........!

[Rowsley17D]

I use the spread glue (carpet latex stuff from B&Q) lay painted track, pour over ballast (Carrs or DCC Concepts) hoover off method. My track is thin sleepers. Thick sleepers appear on the ballast rather than in it using this method and no good for modern image.

[Brummyrlb]

Thanks to everyone who commented on my ballast meanderings ! I do intend to do a final weathering with an airbrush , but I remain very dissatisfied with the colours ‘straight out of the jar . To date I’ve had some success colouring the ballast by shaking it with a dab of weathering powder . Caution with the work area this is a serious contaminant ! Trouble is , much of the colour is lost in the track wetting process . I’m testing Ballast bond currently , but it does not dry Matt as it says on the tin , glazing my painted sleepers . It spreads wonderfully on a wet bed , but tends to drag the ballast on a dry bed . Maybe I’m doing something wrong? . In the colouring experiments I’ve found that adding water to the powder / ballast mix does improve its resilience to being ‘washed off ‘ , but the business of drying it out is lengthy and it’s less ‘tweakable ‘ .

It’s a case of stirred NOT shaken when tweaking the colours because otherwise the pile gets bigger and bigger but doesn’t change much in shade , the added ballast colour being polluted by the powder already in main mix . Any comments very appreciated .

[Brummyrlb]

Got the ballast pre colouring sorted but now I’m struggling to find a pva glue that DOESNT leave a glazed ‘snail trail ‘ across the sleepers - Tamiya matting agent noted Thankyou for that - yet to source it . Ballast bond works great but DOES NOT dry Matt ! There has to be a glue out there somewhere , no one seems to address the glazing problem HELP !

[Mike Storey]

 

I believe it is very useful to lay small lengths of track onto off-cuts of wood & try several different things until you are happy with the finish you want.

 

Totally agree with that, except that some of the best effects I have managed, were achieved quite by accident, and I could not for the life of me, ever replicate them again!

 

So, always write down what you did, as you are doing it.....

[Jeff Smith]

Got the ballast pre colouring sorted but now I’m struggling to find a pva glue that DOESNT leave a glazed ‘snail trail ‘ across the sleepers - Tamiya matting agent noted Thankyou for that - yet to source it . Ballast bond works great but DOES NOT dry Matt ! There has to be a glue out there somewhere , no one seems to address the glazing problem HELP !

I have not noticed that effect - I think maybe you are not diluting it enough. I don't measure but probably mix about 10:1 plus a squirt of liquid soap. After a good shake you have to wait for the foam to die down.... A wash of diluted brown or black emulsion paint should make it all uniform and kill any shine. It will puddle or collect in the cracks and look like 'established' ballast.