Scenery Stuff

[Anonymous]

Bryant...

Welcome, and good choice of hobby (if I do say so myself...) [:)]

Thanks for the tips - the concrete colour one is great, because if (when [;)]) you chip the plaster after installation, it will not result in a big white spot on the rock face.

Just make sure to get the plainest, non-clumping cat litter you can find.

Andrew

[Anonymous]

I meant, and should have asked; what brand is the reddish stuff?

[Jetrock]

Just don't let the cat near the layout with that sort of ballast! It might result in an unpleasant obstruction of your track that would bring a new meaning to the term "rail cleaner"...

[Big_Boy_4005]

I have used Rit dye in my plaster to give it a base color, that way if it chips later the bright white doesn't show.

As for kitty litter, some of us O gaugers using it as ballast for over 20 years. Just don't buy the brands with the green stuff in it.

I have always wondered if the Rit dye would work on that if you were careful not to make it clump. I may have to try Lupo's method, though doing it a tea spoon at a time may take a while on 100 pounds of material.[:P]

[lupo]

[#welcome] Bryant01

another way to process kitty-litter for use as ballast is to use an old coffee-mill to reduce the size of the "rocks " before sifting out the big bumps.
You could use water based paint to color it: put some fresh made kitty ballast in a cup, add some color ( tea-spone at a time ) and start stirring it until all moisture is absorbed in the litter, you can repeat that to get darker colors or mix different colored kitty ballast tto your taste and needs.

[snowey]

at a pet store, where else?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the tips! keep'um coming!! I have ben using Kitty Litter also. I like the reddish stuff. Do you know where this is available?

[Anonymous]

[swg]
You're a man after my own hart. LOW BUDGET MODEL RAILROADING!

[Anonymous]

I am retired and decided last month to take up model railroading. I have been experimenting with rock molds and found that you can put a few drops of cement (concrete) coloring in your plaster of paris mix and make some convincing rock formations. The colors available at Home Depot are: terra cotta, red , buff and charcoal. The colors do not affect set time and you end up with a rock that is the same color all the way through. You can spray the casting with a darker color and then quickly wipe off the surface enhances depth perception because the darker color remains in the cracks a crevices after you wipe off the surfaces. The advantage to this approach is that you never see the white plaster casting even if you break the casting into pieces.
On another subject, I bought a bag of kitty litter at Walmart last night and have size-graded into four mesh ranges . The largest can serve as talus, the lower middle as ballast, and the the smallest as powdered earth. The ballast size material is already the right color, but I plan to see if I can stain the smallest mesh with my Home depot concrete coloring. Since the stuff is supposed to be absorbent, it wiil probably suck up the stain like gangbusters!
Bryant