I have been asked by a couple of club members to find out about using spray bottles to apply diluted glue to scenery and ballast. They are of the opinion that spraying glue is a good way to apply it. However, they have not had much success with finding spray bottles that will put down a fine mist of diluted glue. Everything that we have tried has put out too powerful a spray of glue that messes with the ballast profile and blows the ground foam etc. around. They also jam up quickly.
So, my first question is - does anyone know of a brand of spray bottle that works properly for spraying glue?
My second question is - should we even be trying to spray glue? I don't recall seeing a lot of modelers who actually spray glue at all. Alcohol and wet water yes, but glue? I personally think that using pipettes for the glue is a much better way to proceed, but I told the spray method proponents that I would ask their question.
As always, thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Hi, Dave
The only time I tried filling a spray bottle with PVA/Matte Medium/Mod Podge was during one session where I was making "Super Trees" and I tried the spray bottle for making a mist of glue for the foliage to stick to.
Turns out just dunking the tree armature into a pan of the diluted glue was a better method. That spray bottle continually gunked up and I never tried to spray "ballast cement" again. If one tiny piece of goop lodged in the nozzle the spray pattern turned into a random squirt pattern! No good.
Everyone has their choice methods. I'm one of those nuts you hear about that actually enjoys ballasting. After I lay a very fine but generous mist of wet water down I use a "wash bottle" that looks like this:
IMG_2919 by Edmund, on Flickr
Maybe a little more costly, but this is the one I recently bought to supplement my arsenal: https://tinyurl.com/ycmktd7q
It is called a "unitary" bottle as there is no dip tube, it is built into the side of the bottle. Some of the bottles with the dip tube have a vacuum breaker built in and they should be removed for better control of the glue stream.
I saw these used in the lab at GE and one of the sales people gave me a few samples to try out. The nice thing is you have precise control. I have to remind myself to begin the stream of glue either on a tie or rail until I get the proper "flow" going as too strong of a stream will move the ballast. The Idea is to watch the glue get absorbed by capillary action into the ballast rather than apply the glue directly to it. I use Mod Podge Matte. Again, everyone has their "go-to" formula.
I never use tap water for thinning. DISTILLED water is 75¢ a gallon around here. I only use distilled water for my water thinning needs OR decal work. I make my wet water using half water and half 99% Isopropyl and I also put a quick squirt of dish soap in (belt & suspenders?)
I thin my PVA, Mod Podge, etc. ONLY using distilled water. Sometimes the glue bottle will sit on a shelf for six months or more between "sessions". Does the addition of alcohol react with the glue formula over a long period? Why risk it?
My ballasting method actually begins a day or two ahead of time. I use Midwest Cork with the beveled edge. I found that by brushing a fairly thick layer of PVA on each face of the bevel, either side of the track, then while still tacky lightly sprinkle your ballast as if you were decorating cup cakes with granulated sugar. Don't worry about the excess. Once the bevel edge-glued ballast is set it helps keep the main track ballast in place and prevents wasting ballast that falls off the slope. It is one extra step but I believe it pays off. It also maintains the nice appearance of the beveled profile.
For applying the dry ballast I use these vee-shaped powder scoops, also found at a lab supply. Some folks swear by plastic spoons, folded card stock or, (!) one of those ballast applicator things that you drag along the track.
Similar to these: https://tinyurl.com/y7hb3j62
IMG_2915 by Edmund, on Flickr
I lightly tap these "scoops" and the ballast can be very precisely applied. Then, of course, it is time to trim up using a variety of brushes and sometimes, I'll use a disposable foam brush. My experience and preference is to spread the ballast sparingly. Thin spots can always be filled in a day or two later. Much easier to add more than to try to remove too much.
Just before wetting I'll lightly tap the rail head to shake any stray grains of ballast off the rail base/web and to nest the ballast between the ties one final time. I used to use the handle of the orange brush in the photo. After a while I was seeing flecks of orange paint along the track! You can see the paint chipping off. I use a plain wood dowel or unpainted handle of a small screw driver. Once everything has been wetted you don't want to have to disturb anything. Then dribble the glue on until you begin to see the white liquid pooling up between the ties.
I'm almost to the point where all my track ballasting will be finished. I'll need to find something else to keep busy with. Maybe I'll take up crochet?
Hope that helps—
Good Luck, Ed
I use the mustard and ketchup bottles that have a twist top on them. The more you turn the top the more that can come out. Probably works the same as Ed's does.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
I use a standard plastic mustard/ketchup bottle with a ratio of 1/3 white glue, 1/3 isopropyl alcohol, and 1/3 water mixed together. With the applicator nozzle cut just a bit larger, I get a good control over how much solution flows out by adjusting the amount of "squeeze". This allows the solution to evenly spread between the ties while also providing a controlled flow over ballast on roadbed slopes. A bit goes a long way. The use of a spray bottle, I think, would be less accurate and put glue out over too wide of an area getting onto surfaces where it's not wanted.
Russ
Modeling the early '50s Erie in Paterson, NJ. Here's the link to my railroad postcard collection: https://railroadpostcards.blogspot.com/
Just use a spoon. That is what I do. Easy to control, easy to apply.
I do spray alcohol first as a wetting agent, and then I spoon on the glue/water mix.
Works like a charm. Slow and somewhat tedious, but highly effective.
Rich
Alton Junction
A few years ago I bought a spray bottle in the garden section of Home Depot with the "Ortho" brand name on it. It has a brass twist nozzle.
.
Best spray bottle I ever had for spraying diluted glue, but it was difficult to clean after each use.
I lost it about a year ago.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Also try the beauty supply stores, like Sally's Beauty, if you have any out there.
Wife gets different spray bottles from them, for her own business and the podiatry office she works at.
Mike.
My You Tube
I agree with the beauty supply stores. Another option is eyeglass cleaner pump spray bottles. I used one for track ballast and was impressed with its mist type spray.
I used to follow the "conventional wisdom" at the time and spray my wet water and glue, but quickly found that both messy and wasteful. Now I use a pipette for wet water, actually just straight isopropyl alcohol, and an Elmer's bottle for the thinned white glue.
Alcohol is cheap enough to use straight, and I find it dries faster than watering it down.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Woodland Scenics even sold (still sells?) a spray bottle for use with their Scenic Cement and I never had much luck with it, either. I have found that all "pistol grip" type spray bottles just have too much oomph when dealing with loose grains of ballast. They probably are best suited to large surfaces such as the side of a hill where you want to apply ground foam or use a static grass device, or for alcohol/india ink mixes when darkening ballast which is already affixed.
For ballasting I use eye droppers or pipettes, but have had some success with the kind of "pump" spray bottle that hair sprays and some perfumes have. The amount of air pushed out with the product is just that much less.
Dave Nelson
I've never had any success applying diluted glue with a spray bottle. Can't get a fine mist pattern that wouldn't disturb the scenery/ballast or it would bead up at the tip and drip onto the ballast causing it to move.
Since my glue solution is 50/50 (elmer's white glue/water), I simply use the elmer's glue bottle.....mix it, shake it, adjust tip for flow rate/drip.....repeat as necessary.
I use a spray bottle to apply isopropyl alcohol prior to the glue. I got a $1 travel spray bottle, which is small enough to use without getting in the way and the mist is fine enough to not disturb the scenery/ballast.
Terry
Inspired by Addiction
See more on my YouTube Channel
Applying the diluted white glue with a spray bottle not only wastes the product (I know, it's not that expensive), but it also puts the glue in places you don't want it: all over the rails and especially into the turnouts. If the members are having trouble using applicators that allow drops of diluted glue to be applied, then it's very likely that they're not pre-wetting the ballast to a sufficient degree. Using such applicators allows much better control over where the glue goes, and also allows easy methods to prevent fouling turnouts with too much glue, or cementing the points in place. If your ballast is deep or atop rip-rap, sprayed glue will be insufficient to penetrate right to the bottom, resulting in a crust atop loose material...
You'd likely need a hammer to drive a nail into this stuff...
Tell 'em to suck it up and be thankful that they don't have to use shovels to spread the ballast.
Wayne
I use an old Elmers glue bottle to dribble the glue mixture on.
Joe Staten Island West
doctorwayneApplying the diluted white glue with a spray bottle not only wastes the product (I know, it's not that expensive), but it also puts the glue in places you don't want it
That's for sure. Now as for "wet water" applied before-hand, I would be ok with spraying that on with a fine mist sprayer.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Dave,
To add to the advice already offered:
I agree - Don't spray glue - it makes a mess.
When spraying wet water or alcohol wetting agents, point the sprayer straight up and let the mist fall down on the ballast gently. This also is quite messy. There are times when it is best to spray the wetting agent - such as in the case of fine dirt. Otherwise I avoid spraying.
I usually use alcohol applied with a wide tip needle applicator to wet the ballast and I use the same type of applicator to apply the glue mixture. Soak the heck out of deep ballast/rock piles with glue for best results.
Have fun,
Guy
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
The latest episode of Off the Rails on MRVP was made just in time for you.
I have a fine mist spray bottle but I don;t put glue in it, I use that to mist on the alcohol before adding the glue. The spray is so fine and gently that it doesn;t blow the loose ballast all over the place, as Gerry demonstrates in the video.
For the glue - if I didn;t already have an alternative, that hair dye applicator botle would eb perfect. What I have is a mustard jar. But not any mustard - the more popular brands have a big spout. There is a brand we get around here, might be throughout the US, dunno if it's sold in Canada, called Plochmann's. Ther bottles have a very fine tip - one thing is you never get a giat blob of mustard on your hot dog using this stuff, and that makes it great for dripping diluted glue on scenery materials - no giant stream to wash away the materials. It's easy to drip it on slowly and allow it to soak through the scenery materials instead of forming oversize spots that look like a small meteorite hit. The pictured hair dye applicator should be the same thing, and you don;t have to use up a container of mustard first to get the dispenser. But it's good mustard
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I use old Elmer's glue bottles for both alcohol to saturate the ballast or scenery and for the 50/50 glue and water mix that I home mix to use as scenic cement. Just don't see the need to spray any of this stuff.
Jim
Visit look4trains.com
Lots of spary skeptics, but it works for me. I use sparying, really misting, for anything that doesn't need a puny applicator. It's only wasteful or goes in the wrong places if you're not being careful.
First, you can find good quality spary/mist bottles at any place that sells janitor supplies, including many big boxes. The sparyer head should adjust to give you the right spray. Keep looking if you can't find them at first or ask the local janitor, as they are always needing to mix and mist various solutions and will know what and where to get it.
Second, don't use glue, use matte medium. This is somewhat more expensive but gives good, reliable results. Then cut it half and half with water. This sparys or mists easily.
Third, prep the area to be sparyed with a mist of 91% alcohol. Yep, not the 70% most use, because there's too much water in it and it doesn't evap[orate quickly enough for me. You do need to be cautious around things that can be affected by alcohol, so get in close and mist from there instead of hosing down the whole layout. This also works well with the lightweight walnut shell ballast that WS sells, as well as with most foam and other lightweight ground cover materials.
Foruth, tape over the throw bar on turnouts and minimize getting any spray on the points. These are places where the eyedropper method is still good to have in your skill set. Just maneuver around them with the matte mist, then go back and touch them up with the dropper method.
Yes, if you're not careful you can make an epic mess of things. On the other hand, once you've mastered this skill, the amount of scenicking you can do is amazing.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
SeeYou190 A few years ago I bought a spray bottle in the garden section of Home Depot with the "Ortho" brand name on it. It has a brass twist nozzle. . Best spray bottle I ever had for spraying diluted glue, but it was difficult to clean after each use. . I lost it about a year ago. . -Kevin .
I gave up on attempting to clean spray nozzles used to deliver diluted wood and white glues long ago. At least, cleaning by wiping them dry. The trick is to keep a plastic cup of water handy, set aside so it won't be knocked over. When you have done spraying for the day/week/year, you remove the top of the assembly, the spritzer, and insert the uptake tube into the clean water in the cup. Spray until the water is clearly...uh....clear. Close the nozzle by screwing it to snug, reinsert the tube into the glue mix, and lay it all aside.
Wiping the nozzle is ineffective and will result in self-torture the next time you go to use the sprayer.
All that aside, I use a screw nozzle squeeze bottle such as mustard bottles. You can get the nozzle close to the ballast so that the dilution doesn't fall and displace the ballast grains with its momentum.
Tip: place a few, clean, small pebbles into your glue bottles. When you go to use them, shaking to mix will include moving the pebbles, thus improving agitation.
To preserve spray nozzles from glue I take a pot full of hot water outside and stick the tube of the sprayer in it and pump away. I do the same with my sprayers I use for colour washes, none of them has ever seized. It doesn't really matter if they do as they are just old cleaning product bottles.
Dollar tree had a sprayer with a colored bottle that had a really fine spray. I had very good results using it and Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement. As has been noted spray bottle do tend to lock up or leak after spraying glue. However at a dollar each....cant beat that.
Wow guys!
Lots of good advice! Thanks for all the answers.
In my limited experience spraying diluted glue isn't the way to go, but one of our members who has been leading the way on the construction of our new layout wants to spray his glue. That's why I asked the first question, and you have given me some great ideas about how to make that work better.
You have also given me some good arguments for why we shouldn't be spraying glue so I can play the devil's advocate. In fact, our portable layout is showing us as we speak just how poor the results with spraying glue can be if you don't get enough glue down. We have ballast and scenery cracking all over the place, and you guessed it, we used spray bottles to apply the glue. Of course, pipettes or the like don't guarantee enough glue either, but I think it is easier to saturate the ballast with that method.
I have ordered a couple of different sizes of pipettes. We got the 10 ml ones and have tried them but the nozzle hole is a bit too big so it is hard to get a gentle flow of glue. I hope to have the 5 ml pipettes soon so we can give them a try. I also like Ed's 'unitary' squeeze bottle idea and the mustard/glue bottles too, so if the 5 ml pipettes don't work those will be our next step. Your suggestions also reminded me of the technique of not applying the glue directly on top of the ballast, but letting it seep in from the side.
Thanks again everyone!
I suspect the real reason for the crackign scenery is that it was never 'wetted' first. Without the help of a wetting agent of some sort, spraying or droppering glue on will result in a layer at the top, which hardens, and the rest is not actually glued. The crust soon cracks, especially on something that gets move around.
I definitely prefer droppering the glue for ballast - I do it like Cody Grivon shows, after wetting it (I use alcohol - we have hard water in these parts, and adding a couple of drops of soap to it does NOTHING), I apply the glue mix along the OUTSIDE and it will wick up alomst completely to the middle of the track. After both shoulders have glue applies, then I go down the middle to fill in what didn;t quite get there. That also means less glue applied down the center of the track, so less glue dumped over the ties.
Bt for a big field of ground foam 'grass' - I think I will spray the glue, to cover a large area faster. There's room for both ways - in small areas where you want finer control, drop it on with a pipette or the small squeeze bottles. For large areas - spray. Like many things - one size does not necessarily fit all.
Also, on my last layout I tried both glue and matte medium. I noticed no difference in sound or finished appearance with the matte medium - just a lighter wallet. It was one long ballasted stretch of several feet of track,. hald dilute white glue, half with dilute matte medium. I would challenge anyone to tell which is which as a train ran over that section. If I still had that layout section. Something I noticed with diluting white glue with alcohol - it makes it kind of rubbery, instead of turnign it into a hard block when dry. Probably a bit of a chemicla reaction between the white glue and the alocohol. I don;t bother with water, again because of the hard water issues here. Yes, i could go buy jugs of distilled water and use that. But 70% alcohol works great. No issues with the water content, and it won;t strip the paint off everything it comes in contact with accidently.
Thanks Randy,
Your "one size does not necessarily fit all" advice is right on.
I would not spray glue, dilute or otherwise. There is too much of a chance that it will end up where you don't want it to end up.
Secondly, I have tried pipettes, baby syringes (the plastic ones you get at the drug store to give a baby medicine), plastic straws, etc. and have found that an old white glue bottle with the cap barely open works just fine.
Bear "It's all about having fun."
I found that mister spray bottles in the gardening section have the finest mist. I also discovered that you need to spray some hot water from a cup to clean out the glue mixture to prevent clogging. The important thing is to cover any track or structures that are in the area.
I use the translucent condiment bottles like the ones you find at those small diners for finer work. And, they're rather inexpensive at Walmart.
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
No success here with spray bottles for diluting glue. The spray mechanism gets hosed from the glue drying out. I might try the spoon since it's much easier than the spray and don't feel bad for wasting.
I can also see the value of using the long plastic containers for mustard and ketchup.
I have only used spray bottles for spraying Matte Medium solution on my lichen scratch built trees, otherwise they dry crispy and become brittle.
I use janitorial, construction type spray bottles from Home Depot. I do not expect them to last spraying trees too long, they just don't.
I have a rectangular Tupperware container filled with hot hot water standing by. After I spray a half a dozen, ten trees or so I unscrew the pump nozzle and submerge it in the hot water and pump it submerged for a while. I suppose I could use it right away again if needed but I usually don't have more than 6-10 trees to do.
After that I put it in another spray bottle with some Dif wallpaper dissolver and pump the solution through so it doesn't become plugged for the next time I use it.
I often have wondered if you could put Dif into your Matte Medium solution in the first place but I have never tried this.
TF
rrinkerI suspect the real reason for the crackign scenery is that it was never 'wetted' first. Without the help of a wetting agent of some sort, spraying or droppering glue on will result in a layer at the top, which hardens, and the rest is not actually glued. The crust soon cracks, especially on something that gets move around.
I'll second Randy's comment. Not enough wetting definitely sounds like the cause of the crusting.
The fact that it quickly evaporates rather than soaking everything with excess moisture, is one reason I prefer the 90%+ alcohol. You can lay it on heavy to ensure thorough wetting without worrying too much about flooding anything.
Plus, it does take a little practice to be able to judge how much to apply if you're just starting with spraying. And you need to be especially cuatious until you're sure you're getting the spray where it should be and not where it shouldn't. But stuff needs stuck, so everntually you learn to use enough and not end up doing the Noah thing in 1:87. If your rivers start flowing, that's a sign you've probably exceeded expectations...