Good Morning,
I will soon be at the ballasting stage on my HO layout, and got to wondering about the process..........
On previous layouts I have done the "diluted white glue dribbled down the tracks" to secure the ballast. The last layout was in place for 13 years, and I never had a problem (ballast wise) unless I wanted to remove or somehow alter track.
But now I'm thinking, is gluing it down really necessary? I'm the lone operator of the layout, and I lay ballast so its level or below the ties (shouldn't get in the locos innards), and don't lay ballast near the working parts of turnouts.
So my question is, what are your thoughts on the gluing of ballast? Yea, or Nay, or "whatever"???
Thanks,
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Alton Junction
IMHO, that´s not a question at all. There is no alternative to gluing the ballast. Even with closed gear boxes, locos act like a vacuum cleaner, and fine ballast will do no good to a gear box. Guess how I got to know this!
In my opinion, this is a very bad decision. Ballast may contribute to the overall sound of a layout when glued but on my layouts I have never had this problem. Some things to consider if you are not going to secure your ballast:
1.) It will get messed up from time to time due to derailments and just working on the layout. You said you don't mind fixing it, so that is okay.
2.) It will get messed up everytime you clean the rails, which you may have to do more as ballast contains stone dust which will make the tracks "dusty" when you apply the ballast, or move it. And you better not bump the ballast with your bright boy or it will scatter.
3.) When it scatters and gets into your scenery , it is not always easy to vacuum up. It gets caught in the ground foam and bushes and sticks out like a sore thumb.
4.) If you use real stone and it contains magnetic particles, they will get attracted to your engine's motors and cause damage.
5.) You will want to clean your layout from time to time. Having loose ballast will make that more difficult.
6.) The loose particles may wind up in your track switches, causing problems with the point rails' movement.
Modeling the D&H in 1984: http://dandhcoloniemain.blogspot.com/
^^^^^^^
+1
What Benjamin said.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Woodland Scenics ballast, which has been reported to be made from walnut shells, is very light. As your trains run around the layout, they vibrate, and that will tend to shake the track and roadbed just a bit. Slowly, your ballast will migrated downhill, leaving the shoulders of the roadbed to settle below. So, if you don't want to be "maintaining" the ballast periodically, it's better to glue it in place and not worry about it.
Now, how many times have you hit your head or shoulder on the underside of your layout? Think of it like an earthquake. One good solid hit is going to shift a lot of ballast, and after you stop the blood from leaving your noggin, you'll be rearranging that ballast for hours.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Unglued ballast is a mess waiting to happen. It moves around anytime you - bump into the benchwork, clean the track, rerail a car, mis-aim an uncoupling pick, sneeze, etc. It only looks truly good the first moments after it's applied.
Rob Spangler
mlehman ^^^^^^^ +1 What Benjamin said.
+2, Besides all the advantages mentioned, once you have tweaked the trackwork and are quite satisfied w/ the operation, glued ballast will help to keep it that way. Try to pick out debris and clean a layer of dust off loose ballast!
In some situations, on sidings yards etc, where ballast spills may occur, I might see that loose ballast may work. This way the scene can be altered if wanted. Of coarse the loose ballast (spill), would be done on existing glued work. The same is true for sand around a sanding tower/ facility, and coal for a coal dock.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
I vacuum my layout with a shop-vac, so everything needs to be glued.
Check out the Deming Sub by clicking on the pics:
Principally for the reason of keeping the rails where I last put 'em....that's the reason I glue the ballast. I use yellow glue which softens nicely after a couple of minutes with a dilute water and alcohol mixture soaking. As stated by others, once you have groomed it, it becomes a forgettable item if you then glue it. You can vacuum it, cover it with snow and vacuum it later (as I have done), cover it with cinders and later vacuum it, and suffer the indignity of derailments without danger to the nice brushwork you undertook to give it that picture-perfect grooming.
On my last layout, I used MDF spline roadbed, and I glued the not-very-deep ballast lightly after I caulked the flextrack to the spline tops. I found it to be very quiet.
Crandell
So I'd guess that you wouldn't glue the ground cover in place either?
I don't know what the environment in the area of your layout is like, but I've seen an awful lot where there are open joists overhead, table saws or drill presses nearby, all sorts on non-train-related items under, over, and around the layout, and even automobiles parked alongside. Layouts get dirty and every time you need to clean yours, you will most likely have a renewed opportunity to practise your ballasting and ground cover application techniques. One of the reasons that I don't have to clean track is because I use my shop vac to clean both the room, and the layout itself. Dust and cobwebs are gone, the ballast isn't.
Wayne
Gidday, Unable to add to the learned advice above so just add my vote to GLUE.
Cheers, The Bear
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Wow, this may be the only topic on the forum in which there is unanimous agreement one way or another.
Whether we like it or not, it seems that there is no alternative to gluing the ballast.
I just wish that the resulting effect was much quieter, and that removal of the glue was easier.
Rich
Add another vote for glue. For every reason listed previously.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
In another word:
Glue
You'll be far happier than if you don't.
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
An untimely sneeze could also have meteor-like consequences. Glue!
Another vote for glue. There are more disadvantages with not glueing.
Inspired by Addiction
See more on my YouTube Channel
As an experiment, I ballasted two lengths of track in the netherworld. Both were tangent, one was glued, the other wasn't. Both are on 2% grades.
The ballast that got the diluted white glue treatment is still where I put it.
The unglued ballast has migrated outward and downgrade, adversely influenced by every passing train. If it was where the sun was intended to shine I would reballast the track, apply white glue, then vacuum up the rest. It will probably disappear when I vacuum the roadbed (of the entire layout) next month.
The next experiment will involve matte medium.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
tomikawaTT As an experiment, I ballasted two lengths of track in the netherworld. Both were tangent, one was glued, the other wasn't. Both are on 2% grades. The ballast that got the diluted white glue treatment is still where I put it. The unglued ballast has migrated outward and downgrade, adversely influenced by every passing train. If it was where the sun was intended to shine I would reballast the track, apply white glue, then vacuum up the rest. It will probably disappear when I vacuum the roadbed (of the entire layout) next month. The next experiment will involve matte medium. Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Chuck,
When you do the matte medium experiment, make a sound comparison between unglued ballast, glued ballast with white glue, and glued ballast with matte medium. I am curious what you perceive as the diffference among the three alternatives. Which is the most quiet and which makes the most noise?
richhotrain When you do the matte medium experiment, make a sound comparison between unglued ballast, glued ballast with white glue, and glued ballast with matte medium. I am curious what you perceive as the diffference among the three alternatives. Which is the most quiet and which makes the most noise? Rich
Great idea. If you record the sounds, then play it back on your computer, the bar graph should indicate which is producing more sound.
Ach! LIONS do things differently!
LIONS do not glue down ballast, but then the LION does not use cork or other built up road bed for the ballast to roll off of. Track is on a flat sub board, ballast is poured around the tracks. LION never has problem.
But the LION does not use WS Ballast. You can buy some sandblasting material at a construction store which is much cheaper and much heavier, but may be too fine. You would have to look at it to decide.
LION has 1000 feet of mane lion track, but only a small fraction of this is ballasted. LION runs subway trains, him needs no ballast in subway tunnels. Him needs no ballast on elevated structures. Lines in open cuts need ballast, as do lines running on an embankment.
LION buys ballast at Walmart: 25# bag for $5.00 (if you are not put off by the picture of a CAT on the bag. Sift the stuff through a window screen and you will have a bucket full of ballast. This may be a little large to your liking, but my wallet likes it just fine.
LION does not glue the material as it reacts to water, indeed the sub-bed upon which the track is mounted is the old "Celotex" which would also be harmed by liquids.
LION runs his trains on a five minute headway with no problems. Because most ballasted tracks run in an open cut there is nowhere for the ballast to go even it it wanted to go some where.
LION also has a tendency to move tracks around and rearrange things. Him tried that with road bed and glued ballast and decided him to old to bother with that stuff.
Subway trains have no locomotives, these trains running on the sub-bed make one heck of a racket, which is perfectly prototypical. Now I do not have to put sound in them either, but may put microphones under the table to magnify the sound when a train passes over places where I want to draw attention to the layout.
Bottom Line: You tell me...
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I glue down my ballast.......don`t need dust or stray nits getting into drive mechanisms..........I used matte medium mixed 25% with 70% isopropyl alcohol with a drop of Dawn.
My layout was built to be moved around......the matte medium I think is better to use as it remains a little flexible and does help with noise reduction a bit.
Dennis Blank Jr.
CEO,COO,CFO,CMO,Bossman,Slavedriver,Engineer,Trackforeman,Grunt. Birdsboro & Reading Railroad
Hi!
I thank you for the response, and the basically single sided answer to the poll. I do intend to do the "white glue / water / alcohol adhesive method, but as I have not put down ballast for a good 14 years or so, I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything new.
Thanks all!
Mobilman,
Thanks for starting this informative thread, I learned a lot. It looks as if many modelers use white glue and water with isopropyl alcohol added to this mixture. In the past I've just used white glue and water by itself but today I was doing a little ballasting and tried the alcohol addition to the glue---it worked great. As always, lots of great advice here.
Good luck, and btw, I did all of about 6" of ballasting today---I'm a real plodder.
Modeling HO Freelance Logging Railroad.
sfcouple Mobilman, Thanks for starting this informative thread, I learned a lot. It looks as if many modelers use white glue and water with isopropyl alcohol added to this mixture. In the past I've just used white glue and water by itself but today I was doing a little ballasting and tried the alcohol addition to the glue---it worked great. As always, lots of great advice here. Good luck, and btw, I did all of about 6" of ballasting today---I'm a real plodder. Wayne
Wayne, in my experience, what works even better is to spray rubbing alcohol first over the area to be glued, followed immediately by a mix of white glue (or matte medium) and water with several drops of liquid dish washing detergent mixed in for better dispersion and absorption.
On one of my earlier layouts, I did use unglued, or rather i used poorly glued ballast. After a few month, I found the gearboxes of some of my imported diesels had absorbed small particcles of the ballast in the gearbox. Also ound some particals in the frames of some open froame motors, especiall Pitmann and Mantua.