Make your own ballast

[Anonymous]

I want to make my own ballast from stone taken from the prototype I am modelling.
Does anyone have some tips on how to do this in regards to the size of screen and any pitfalls to avoid ?
Mark Michener
Grimsby, Ont. Canada.

[bikerraypa]

QUOTE: Originally posted by michener

I want to make my own ballast from stone taken from the prototype I am modelling.
Does anyone have some tips on how to do this in regards to the size of screen and any pitfalls to avoid ?
Mark Michener
Grimsby, Ont. Canada.

I've never made my own ballast, but I've heard that you should always run a magnet through your final product a few times to get rid of any ferrous material that can jam your loco mechanisms, etc. Hope this helps. Keep us posted on how the project goes.

Ray

[2021]

Unless you have a lot of time or a small layout, try to buy pre-made ballast that closely matches the color you want. Seems like you are looking at a lot of work, but if that's your desire, try using a window screen for sifting (you didn't mention scale so start there and compare to the right scale provided by manufacturers). Window screen is fairly close for HO medium.
Ron K.

[Seamonster]

I use an old kitchen strainer to sift dirt for scenery and crushed stone for ballast. It's about the same as, or maybe a little finer than window screen. I think its original purpose was to sift dry ingredients for baking (my culinary skills are limited to whatever fits between two slices of bread!). The advantage to using this strainer is that it is bowl-shaped so the material stays inside it as it is being sifted and it has a handle. I just put about a cup of material inside it and bounce it up and down and swirl it around, catching the fallout in a coffee can and dumping what doesn't go through in another coffee can to be used as rock elsewhere on the layout. It's hard on the arms and should be done outside because it's rather messy.

[selector]

This is a long shot, but if you have only large pieces of rock, take them to a mineral assay office (many mines have their own), and see if they can put the rocks through one of their small crushers. You can then screen with window screen as suggested.

Alternatively, find a landscaping company near you and find out where they would get local coarse and fine gravel. It may be that they will have some stuff fine enough to get what you want in quantities.

[Anonymous]

I am in the process of laying down ballast. I made up a length track , approx 18" long on a piece of scrape wood and made up different batches of ballast colors, and wrote down how much of different color ballast used to make up sample. If you donot like what it looks like, not use it on the layout. This saves time and redo till come up of what you want for mainline and the sidings and spurs, and also helps to fine tune ballast laying technique.
I' am doing the same thing for dirt and soil for my yard. I'll do it for grass and weeds for my sidings.

[Anonymous]

I have used kitty litter sifted threw window screen. this will give the apperance of
small grey rocks. there is also another type called green which has a different
color textures kinda yellow,black,& grey. you could also try your local hardware
store for building materials. but i have found kitty litter to be the cheapest & easyisto work with hope this helps.

[Wdlgln005]

I have heard of using building sand. You want to screen it to kake out any insect eggs & other junk. The last time I was in Lowe's, they had a product in the garden section called Desert Sand, in a plastic bag. They also had some bags of small stones. Depending on your scale, it may be fine enough to work OK.