hello: finally getting around to ballasting the track. most ballast you buy is quite expensive. i heard some people use crushed walnut shells, but they seem to be kinda small in size; although it's perfect to model iron ore; has the right color too. any ideas?
Think good thoughts, do good deeds!
Hey Einstein,
Go out and harvest your own gravel and screen it down to the size you want. Advantages: free and it's real. Disadvantage: maybe get arrested for "stealing"?
Regards,
Timboy
What kind of track are you using? How many linear feet of track do you have? I offer ballast on my website Brennan's model RR. It's not as expensive as you think. You'll probably spend more on track. If you contact me, I'll be glad to give you an estimate.
Dennis Brennan
Brennan's is good. I collected the little rocks that amassed at the end of the driveway, then cleaned them thoroughly and ended up with a coffee can full - it was enough.
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
I bought grey drainage stone from Lowes. It was a 25lb bag for like $4.00 You do have to sift it yourself to get the right size. I then bought spray paint to darken it just a bit .
Also as stated above. Brennans Model RR ballast and supplies are awesome. He will help you out.
hello; since i am in northern n.j. where everything outside is frozen. good idea though, thanx!
I like kitty litter--even cheaper and it's a good size.
hello Dennis: i use gargraves track with ross switches. my layout is @13x15 with 2 levels. 2 mainlines on outer lower lever and 2 mainlines on outer upper level with connecting switchbacks on each level. also 4 yards apprx. 8 feet in total for yards. thanx!
Would it be safe to say you have about 200 linear feet of track? Please email me at dennis@brennansmodelrr.com.
traindood hello: finally getting around to ballasting the track. most ballast you buy is quite expensive. i heard some people use crushed walnut shells, but they seem to be kinda small in size; although it's perfect to model iron ore; has the right color too. any ideas?
TRAINDOOD,
I use the crushed walnuts. It is very easy to use with the diluted white glue. When I put it down I'll dilute the glue with water then add some acrilic paint to the mixture then drizzle the walnuts with it. When dry the walnuts are afixed and also will have the color on it. Of course you could afix the walnuts then come back later and paint. A 50 lb. sack cost me 20 bucks.
laz57
ey laz: can you give me a little more detail on that mixture of crushed walnuts, glue and paint. really don't want brown ballast. thanx!
hello: tried to e-mail you on at your e-mail address but had tech failure. here goes; have @250feet of track. love to use walnuts but seems to be a little small in scale. great for iron ore.i am modeling the Ogden Baby mine here in northern n.j. i live about a mile away from site of Thomas Edison's first attempt to magnetically separate soil from iron. all future separating process is based on his original design. amazing! things went sour for him when they discovered great ore deposits in Missible range which is still mined to this day.
brennan's is the best
traindood ey laz: can you give me a little more detail on that mixture of crushed walnuts, glue and paint. really don't want brown ballast. thanx!
I got the crushed walnuts at a pet store,That Fish Place in Lancaster Pa. was $20 /50 lbs. I brush down a layer of white Elmers glue. Sprinkle some of the walnuts to cover my area, then take a diluted glue about a 25% glue to 75%water mix. I spray this onto the walnuts to olidify the walnuts when it dries. I add acrylic paint grey to the glue water mixture then with an old dish water contained I dab it to where I wanted the balast to be. I also did a color of black when I had a coal breaker to simulate spilled coal on the tracks it does look pretty good. It's easy.
Here's a pic of the walnut painted grey and a;so some black.
hello; i have gargraves track with ross switches. don't know what a dish water container is,musta missed that one. anyway, looks pretty good. love those log cars! guess i'll give it a whirl. what possibly could go wrong? YIKES!! later.
I myself get all my ballast, ground cover, and rocks for mountains, from the sand and gravel companies. But I live in Arizona and have a mountain to desert layout. If you tell people what your using it for, you would be surprised with the help you may get for a few dollars.
I have always carried plastic bags in my truck to put sand in from river washes. Or just after a rain when you get that fine material washing down in the street. I get most of my rocks for mountains by just going out in the desert and picking them up. I do my own screening of material by size and color. It is a great time of year in Arizona now. Getting into the high 60's this week. I guess I'll take a walk and see what new materials I can find.
“Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.”
AZ-Flyer@American Flyer Cabinet-top Layout (5'x16'): http://az-flyer.blogspot.com/
traindood hello; i have gargraves track with ross switches. don't know what a dish water container is,musta missed that one. anyway, looks pretty good. love those log cars! guess i'll give it a whirl. what possibly could go wrong? YIKES!! later.
Sorry for poor explanation of dishwater container it is the container that holds the soap like dawn. Put ingredience in the dawn dish soap container the squeeze out atop of the crushed walnuts.
hey laz: just jerkin' your chain dude! hope you gotta sense of humor! i like to lighten things up a bit. i'm not the formal type. love a good joke, especially when it's on me.anyway, family consensus is; use the walnuts. so walnuts it is. thanx for all the help.
hello: since i live here in northern n.j. where everything is frozen right now, kinda hard to look for material. great idea though. when the weather breaks here i'm usually outside most of the time. right now looking at crushed walnut shells.got an e-mail from laz; may want to look it over. looks good to me. check it out. i'm always on the lookout for different or unusual material i could use for my layout. there is a lot of stuff out there, experiment. think out of the box! thanx. later.
Another possibility is roofing granules. Can't remember what the cost was but you generally can get a good variety of color choices.
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hello: thanx for reply;good idea, will try as soon as we thaw out up here in northern n.j. ten inches headed this way tonite. little ones are on the lake skating. i'm lovin' it. gotta go to bring hot chocolate. later.
On my layout I am using FasTrack and therefore ballst is not a huge problem for me. There are places where I wanted either additional ballast or ballast between the tracks. In those places I used product from Woodland Scenics. First I painted the areas where I wanted the ballast between the teacks. Then I sprinkled on the ballast and finally sprayed it with 3 different coats of Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement. I think that the ballast color is fairly close to FasTrack ballast. I plan on eventually applying a light coat of india ink to blend it all together after first painting the sides of the rails.
Cobrabob.
Toy Trains, they are not just an adventure, they are a way of life !
traindood hey laz: just jerkin' your chain dude! hope you gotta sense of humor! i like to lighten things up a bit. i'm not the formal type. love a good joke, especially when it's on me.anyway, family consensus is; use the walnuts. so walnuts it is. thanx for all the help.
No offence taken. Yepper I got a sense of humor. Always doing dumb things, sometimes it really peeves off the WIFE, but she just shakes her head. Good luck with them crushed walnuts, OUCH. Have fun and post some pics.
Almost forgot, chicken grit works pretty good as well but as a rule of thumb you best plan on doing some staining on it.
I've used walnut shelss, roofing granules, and real rock. I will never use anything other than real rock ever again. I find it much easier to work with. Woodland Scenics ballast is made from walnut shells. My preference in N and HO scales has always been Arizona Rock and Mineral ballast. In O scale I have used their product as well but find the large scale rock looks more like it is chipped rather than looking like gravel. They have one ballast in HO scale that is large for the scale but looks beautiful in O scale. It is very hard to find though. My standard O scale ballast for the most part has become Brennan's Better Ballast. I have also used his Coarse Superior Sand as ballast with very nice results. Ballast is one area that I just won't skimp on to save a few bucks.
Track work is a major scenic element. Gargraves, Ross, AtlasO, MTH Scaletrax, are typically used by those who are looking for realism. These track systems are not inexpensive, yet, at the risk of this being seen as self-serving, I have to say that I don't understand using the least expensive alternative when it comes to ballast. It, too, like track is a one time expense. People spend far more on even one mid-priced engine than it costs to ballast even the largest layout.
hello: that's a great analogy. i suppose people have in their minds they are just buying rocks. in the same way some people will drive out of there way to save 2 cents on a gallon of gas! there are some things people will just not do. human nature; go figure?. later.
hello: thanks for the reply. great photos of your layout. i wonder if i have to paint the rails first or ballast first? probably have to do rails inside and out. need some guidance there. i got a lot to learn. later.
hey laz: be glad to send you some pics if i knew how to do it! recently got computer so have to take baby steps. still having trouble finding where letters on the keyboard are! have to ask my nine year old grandson how to do it.i got a lot to learn. inexperienced but unafraid. later.
Since this is a ballast thread, and a very helpful one at that, I thought I'd throw in a question for ballasting a different track setup. I have a postwar tubular 031 profile layout on tan cork roadbed. I anticipate that someday either the current or a succesor but similar layout will be ballasted.
Would appropriate ballast materials and methods be the same or different for my setup? (I also anticipate adding additional ties, which I understand are available for 031. )
Current layout size is about 13 x 15 with one main line, 5 bypass sidings and 2 dead sidings, but I'm planning for much more (someday).
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