N Scale Ballast

[Anonymous]

Ok. I have tried to lay ballast for years. I want it to look like the photos in all of the mags, but I cannot seem to duplicate the look.

I used Atlas Flex Track on Midwest Cork roadbed, and have the woodland scenics fine ballast.

How do you get it to lay down evenly, then stay there in a natural look? I have no clue how to get it "between" the ties and not all up on the rails. I have to ask for advice here. What do you guys suggest?

[MAbruce]

I just went through this a couple of years ago, and used the same product (in N-scale too).

There is a good “how-to” article to consult on this site:

http://www.trains.com/content/dynamic/articles/000/000/000/104mnojz.asp

I used the same method, although I shied away from ballasting my switch points (in fear of gluing them frozen). Someday, I’ll go back and fini***hem.

The only thing I would suggest is that you first look at pictures of (or visit) rail lines to see how far up the ballast comes up on the ties. In most cases, the ballast sits just below the rail ties. This means that you should not get carried away with the ballast (this is something I had to adjust after ballasting my first section). I used a small brush and carefully brushed the ballast into place (after pouring it in with a small dixie cup). Remember, a little goes a long way!

I would start with a small and less seen section of track to test (and perfect) your method. Once you get the hang of it, open up on the rest of your layout.

Have fun!

[mls1621]

One thing you might try, that worked well for me, is to moisten the ballast with alcohol before applying the glue.

Mixing the glue with equal parts water and alcohol, allows a more even flow when applied to the alcohol dampened ballast.

The only down side to this method has to do with paint. If you painted your track with water based paint, the alcohol will wa***he paint from the ties and rails.

On my layout, I used Micro Engineering pre-weathered flex track to prevent losing that detail. Spraying the track with Floquil, and letting it set good and hard for a few days, should work just as well.

I model in N scale too, good luck with your layout.

Mike
St Louis

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mdemt

Ok. I have tried to lay ballast for years. I want it to look like the photos in all of the mags, but I cannot seem to duplicate the look.

I used Atlas Flex Track on Midwest Cork roadbed, and have the woodland scenics fine ballast.

How do you get it to lay down evenly, then stay there in a natural look? I have no clue how to get it "between" the ties and not all up on the rails. I have to ask for advice here. What do you guys suggest?

It can be tough to get the Woodland Scenics stuff to stay where you put it, because it floats. If you mist the entire section you're ballasting with alcohol, it usually stays. But, frankly, I avoid the whole issue and go with a rock-based product like Highball.

So:

Pour ballast betwen the rails and along the sides of the roadbed..

Carefully--and I mean real carefully--get it looking exactly how you want it. Using a small paintbrush, brush all particles off the tops of the ties (this always makes model track look bad!) and away from the rails. Shape the slope just right. Spend a lot of time on this part and get it just right.

Then mist alcohol from a spray onto the ballast. Spray overhead and let it fall gently onto the track. Get it good-n-wet.

Then use the old eyedropper and slowly drip 50-50 white glue and water onto the ballast. Do it between the rails and continue to flow it onto the track until you see white showing up on the shoulders. Do this with care and you will not mess up your countours from the earlier step. Use a lot of glue--white must show up everywhere, or it won't be stuck down when the glue dries. (This is where the WS stuff often fails,m because when it gets wet and floats, everything gets messed up.)

Good luck!

[AltonFan]

I am told that Woodland Scenics ballast is made from crushed and dyed nutshells. A guy who used to clerk at my LHS said it never worked right for him, because the "stones" were too light.

I believe crushed stone ballast is still available, and might give better results. I managed to get good results using a crushed stone ballast the last time I ballasted track, using conventional methods. (Spread ballast, spray with "wet" water, apply diluted white glue with eyedropper.)

[Anonymous]

I recently discovered colored sand sold at the craft stores, intended for placement in clear bowls and the like. There are several useful shades, and the thing is, it is very finely grained, such that it looks right in N-scale. I mix in this stuff with my more conventional Highball or Woodland Scenics ballast, which even though it might be labeled as "Fine" is still rather chunky for N-scale. The sand helps to reduce the texture down to a more reasonable scale, while the packaged ballast helps to maintain color consistency.

When I applied dilute glue from an eyedropper, I noticed that it seemed to soak more readily into the sand-ballast mixture than it would into ballast alone. This means that rather than having a droplet bead up and roll down the ballast shoulder, messing up all the careful placement, it tended to get absorbed better without shifting things around. It isn't perfect, though, and I still tried to apply the droplet near the ties first (capilary action draws it into the ballast along the sides of the ties), then branch outwards down the shoulder after it gets soaked. Of course, I am not using a mister or wetting agent beforehand, which would probably help. Sorry I can't recall the brand name of the sand, but I found it at Michael's next to bags of translucent pebbles and glass beads (which would also be used in a clear vase arrangement).

[Anonymous]

I appreciate all of the input. I am sure there are more "secrets," so let me know as the thoughts come to you, I will be slowly working this process. (I used to just slap down my layouts, but realize now how many I have ripped apart....)

[Anonymous]

I have done a write up here and on other forums about ballasting, I will see if I can find it and edit it in.

I have found it and am editing the "article" I wrote for you and others new to ballasting:

I am an N scaler, but have done all my ballasting on a friends layout, which is HO. I do not consider I am giving you the best technique, but I do know I am giving you the cheapest one that works.

Like many of you, I've had problems when ballasting. And, I've read lots of threads from folks who have had trouble ballasting. I ballast with a chap who is the "master"; he ballasts most people's layouts in our group of model railroading friends. He is also the best modeller, layout builder, etc of all of us. So last week we ballasted a new area on the Kettle Valley HO layout we were working on, so with all the problems I have read about and experienced, I watch him like a hawk. So I am going to give you - step by step - what we did.

First, you have to saturate the ballast. The level of "wetness" of the ballast is actually critical. You will notice I did not say wet it, but saturate it. So lets looks at the difference. Its summer and some one jokingly turns a hose on you and your jeans become wet. The water spreads out over the jean and you aren't dripping. Now the party continues and another friend throws you in the lake, now your jeans when you walk out will be saturated, can't hold any more water; and you are dripping. I will explain why this is important in a minute.

Now when spraying, don't spray directly onto the ballast, nor too closely to it or it will move and holes might form. You are trying to create a heavy rain with the sprayer, but that's it. So spray on the horizontal to the ballast, or slightly down towards it, but maintain your distance with the sprayer. The object is to wet it and saturate it.

What is in your sprayer is plain water. Now I know half the planet advocates "wet water" (water with a couple of drops of detergent in it), or an alcohol water mixture, or pure alcohol. So there I am spraying and I ask Mike how much detergent to put in the water. His response: "Rick, I stopped putting detergent in the water because I couldn't tell the difference when I added it and when I didn't. Since I couldn't tell the difference, I stopped adding it."

You will only want to spray three or four feet only, then move on after the glue/water mixture is eye dropper into the ballast. The mixture of white glue to water is 50/50. Again others will tell you to use matte medium, but the white glue water mixture has worked since the beginning of time. It is possible the earth is held together by white glue and water mixed together. Since this is the cheapest technique and it works, why muck with success.

This next part is important. You must establish a pattern of laying the glue down; its easy to miss a part. So I watched the master. First pass is the white glue/water between the ties, next pass is on the outside of the rail ties, next pass on the ballast beyound the rail ties, then lastly repeating this same procedure on the other side; so 5 passes in all - one in the middle, two on either side of the track.

We used kids eye droppers.

What I recommend, if you've never done this before is try an experiment on the first six inches you do. After you have done this experiment, it will be as though the scales fell from your eyes. For the first 6 inches, don't wet or saturate the ballast for the white glue/water mixture. Put on liberally some glue/water without any wetting agent. What you will discover is that the glue/water sits on top of the ballast without sinking in, also some ballast may float to the top of the glue/water bubble. Now with the glue sitting on top of the ballast, grab your sprayer and start spraying. You will find it takes a bit of spraying, but once the ballast really gets soaking wet, the glue/water will be sucked into the ballast.

When glue sits on top and won't go into the ballast, the ballast isn't wet enough.

Finally after the glue has dried, a day or two or three, go back and run your finger over all of it. You should discover that about 98 % of it is rock solid. You will probably run into a part that isn't securely glued and easily moves. So then you re-soak the ballast with water, then add your glue/water mixture again. And voilà your ballast will be glued solid.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely detailed post. I will try this tomorrow (got to get the eydropper.) Thank you so much, I appreciate your help and candor.

[AltonFan]

Using an eyedropper to do this is not nearly as tedious as it sounds. I found it went very quickly.

[Anonymous]

Ok... Just tried the Ballasting. Let you know tomorrow how it looks. So far, so good!

[Anonymous]

Ok...

I went with the Woodland Scenics. The most important thing I have found is that when it all dried the first time, I re-soaked it and used the 50% solution of white glue a second time. (It is rock hard.)

Another tip, when you have the ballast laid perfectly, and BEFORE you spray any water, take your finger and run down the ties between the rails (and outside the rails if your patient,) to knock off any "top ot the tie" rocks.

I uesd Flux paste brushes slightly angled forward to sweep the ballast (it pulls just enough from between the ties to make them appear to be up higher in the ballast.)

It is looking great! Thanks to all of you for your help. Any new tricks or tips, put them here! (As far as I'm concerned, Ballasting is one of the most important parts, and is most noticable since I don't have a "busy" empire.