asking for ballast suggestions for an indoor g-scale layout....

[St Francis Consolidated RR]

    Hello Fellow G-scale F-scale 1:20 1:22 1:24 1:25 1:29 1:32 Friends!

    Let me introduce myself a little....I have been hanging out mostly in the model railroader magazine forum because I model indoors. I model what is supposedly 1:24 scale but I have an addiction to Bachmann shays which are gigantic and I also love the Aristo-Craft heavyweights and USA Trains PA diesels which are 1:29 and I think even 1:32, all of which means I suffer from the "G" scale syndrome. What can you do? Ha!

     However, I really do try to keep structures and scenery and everything else I can including figures and cars at 1:24. I use mostly Gargraves hollow aluminum flextrack because the scale is more attractive to me than the usual g-scale brass and nickel-plated track which I use in less noticeable places on the layout (and I haven't gotten up the nerve to hand-lay any nickel-plated 225 track yet, although that's in my future!), and being indoors I don't have to worry about people stepping on the hollow track and the effects of sun and snow and other weather and all that. (I haven't figured out how to get the look of tieplates on Gargraves track, but that's another story.)

     Now then...ballast! In the past, before I overcame my fear and rather snobbish attitude toward computers and joining a forum, I did a search of this forum for ballast and read that granite chicken grit is a possibility. Like others have related, I also got the blank stares and the head-scratching when I asked around. Everyone who supplied such things wanted to sell me crushed sea or oyster shells, which I tried but which, to me, doesn't look too good for ballast. I live in a town of two million people in the middle of the mountains and all kinds of farming land and yet found only ONE place that carries granite chicken grit, but I found it. Just shows you what a little persistence can do, I guess.

     I don't want to ballast my entire layout in chicken grit, however, and I refuse to use stuff like cat litter because to me it looks like cat litter no matter what you do. (I suppose chicken grit looks like chicken grit to people who raise chickens, but, then, not many people raise chickens so it doesn't really matter!)

     Finally, after all that, here's my two-part question:

     1. Is it just as important in G-scale as in the smaller scales to avoid any kind of magnetized rock for ballast? I brought this up in the forum for the smaller scales and was sent the message in no uncertain terms that model locomotive engines would be totally ruined by magnetized rock. I understand that, but I was hoping against hope I could smash to the right scale and then use some of our really beautiful native rock here in Colorado as ballast. In searching through this forum, I don't see the emphasis on non-magnetized rock.

     2.  What else can I use for ballast? I would like something that is either about 1:24 scale or which can be smashed to about that scale. I see references to "crusher fine," but I don't know what the heck that is and when I asked around  the block I got more blank stares than when I went searching for granite chicken grit!

     Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

     p.s. I weather my track to look rusted and make the ties look weathered and realistic as I can.

 

[cabbage]

Here in the UK we use fish tank gravel. I have no idea as to the dangers of magnetic rock as most of the rock locally is gneiss, grit stone and limestone -so far I have had no problems. Nor incidentally do I weather anything... regards ralph

[dwbeckett]

A short reply decomposed granet ( DG ) -TAN or 1/4 inch minus ( Crusher fines ) Gray 

Dave 

[ttrigg]

St Francis Consolidated RR

  2.  What else can I use for ballast? I would like something that is either about 1:24 scale or which can be smashed to about that scale. I see references to "crusher fine," but I don't know what the heck that is and when I asked around  the block I got more blank stares than when I went searching for granite chicken grit! 

Go to your nearest rock store, they sell almost nothing but rocks. From 12 ton monoliths to adorn the front yard to bags of crushed gravel in various sizes. "Crusher Fines" is the dust and very tiny bits that break off when they run rock through the crusher to make it smaler.

[Jerry Barnes]

 I use chicken grit(feed store)  Fine would be okay inside, tends to get washed away outside, I use the medium there.