Ballast

[RayG8]

I haven,t installed ballast in awhile and was wondering id anyone had some interesting method to speed up the process.

[doctorwayne]

What's the rush?  
It's a quick job if you're doing just track, and only a little more time is required for turnouts, but either way it should be a relaxing experience and one that gives exceptional "bang for your buck", both time-wise and dollar-wise.

Wayne

[richhotrain]

Speed up what process? 

Applying ballast?

Or, getting yourself in the mood to ballast?

My method is to stop thinking about it and just don't apply ballast.

Rich

[selector]

Ballasting, believe it or not, is to me about the easiest and fastest thing about making decent track.  I won't claim to be really good at it, or experienced, but I have just about ballasted my entire twinned 50' main, and total time doing it would be in the order of two hours.

Whaaaa....!!???

I'll explain.  I use local grey/black/whitish beach sand.  I take up an ounce or so in a large serving spoon and just pour it out between the rails sufficiently to do two or three feet there.  Another dip into the bucket and I do the outer ties on one side, several more dips to do the three feet, and then do the other side.  The idea is to pour enough so that it comes a little higher than the outer edges of the ties.  The bristles will make the proper contours out there.

I take a long bristled 1" wide paint brush, not the cutting-in type, but flat across the bottom, and holding it verticallly and with the bristles touching the ties tops well, I draw it in three or four slowish sweeps in one direction almost always.   With a few bristles outside the rails as well if you hold it right, it does everything in a few sweeps over the three feet.  You have to control the height reasonably well or you scour out the grains between the ties.  Then, wet the ballast with an isopropyl alcohol mixture, dribble on glue mixed to between 4 and 6 to 1, and immediately wipe the rail tops.  Using that general process, I have ballasted about 20 feet of twinned mains and the yard throats only in the past two weeks totalling about  one hour of application time.

The big tricks are three: to have the right amount poured along the section to be ballasted (less is better...you can always sprinkle a little extra and swipe the brush once more), and then to have the right brush and technique.  It would be worth taking 10 minutes to try it, vacuum it up, and do it again, all the while teaching yourself how to use the long bristled brush.  Once you learn it, you will be amazed at how quickly you can get decent-looking ballast, naturally fallen, and ready for the three minutes more it'll take to wet and glue it.

You can get clean sand at garden centres.  It used to be called 'sharp sand'.  You can buy a 15 pound bag of the stuff for a few dollars and get heavier grains, natural ones, that won't shift under gluing pressures.  Colour may be an issue, yes...

Crandell

[doctorwayne]

selector

Ballasting, believe it or not, is to me about the easiest and fastest thing about making decent track.

I agree, and when I ballast, it often covers a much wider swath than merely the track.  In the scene below, all of the ballast on the foreground tracks, back to the turnout just this side of the trees, and all of the ground cover from the left track and right to the front edge of the layout was done in a single session.

Likewise here, where the track ballast, rock fill, and foreground greenery was all done in the same session:

Same situation here:  why go back repeatedly just to get the basic ground cover in place?  You can still add more later, if you think it's required, but the scene looks more complete for just a little more time and effort.

Where there's multiple track, do it all in the same session - the whole area usually gets pre-wetted at the same time anyway, and glue run-off from one track might just as well be used for the next one, or for the ground cover between them:

Crandell, your method certainly gives good results, although I find that holding the ballast-levelling brush almost horizontal gives more control over what's moved (or not).
I've never thought to time my progress: I just enjoy the operation so much that the passage of time doesn't seem to matter.

Wayne

[selector]

doctorwayne

...I've never thought to time my progress: I just enjoy the operation so much that the passage of time doesn't seem to matter.

Wayne

Wayne, I getcha. It's just that, as a guy who doesn't particularly enjoy putting a layout together, ballasting the track is about the least unpleasant thing for me.  On a scale of 1-10, it would rate a 5.  Watching paint dry would be a 4. 

[MisterBeasley]

Choose era-appropriate music to listen to while you ballast.  I use Golden Oldies rock 'n' roll for Transition Era, and jazz for Steam Era.

Or, if I'm not ballasting the main line, I'll sometimes just let a train loop around while working on scenery of any kind.  If I need to pause while the train passes the work zone, well, that's OK, too.

[bearman]

I approach ballasting as a zen-like experience.

[superbe]

IMO ballasting and weathering the rail are two of the most important chores in giving the RR a good appearance. Each by it self makes an immediate impact as well as making the layout so much more visually pleasing.

Because of this I approach the weathering and ballasting with a positive approach and do it until I get bored. This is one of the few scenicing chores that really doesn't take a lot of skill and that's why I probably don't look on it in a negative way.

Bob, The contrarian

[Fun Senior Citizen]

This seems the easiest/quickest way?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HO-EASY-PERFECT-BALLAST-SPREADER-FREE-SHIPMENT-/300450667354?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item45f4415b5a#ht_4048wt_1112

[Geared Steam]

I enjoy ballast as long as I'm using a natural stone ballast, because it lays and stays, unlike Woodland Scenics pecan shell floating ballast. Your mileage may vary.

I have tried those ballast tools mentioned above, my experience wasn't too great, I ended using a spoon, sponge and eye dropper as I always have, I donated  the ballast tool to a club.  

[dstarr]

I'm ballasting right now.  Standard method, using fine gray ballast from Woodland Scenics, $10 a bottle. I have a friend who is getting fine results using roadside sand, sifted for size.  Here is BEFORE.

I poured the loose ballast out, and shaped it with a small paint brush (acid brush actually).  I wet it with water and a little dishwash detergent  applied with an old 409 cleaner spray bottle.  I glued it with a 50-50 white glue and water mixture, dribbled onto the ballast out of an old plastic dishwash bottle.

The glue set up good and hard.  I was able to get the white glue off the rail and get the trains running again by merely rubbing down the railheads with a cloth dampened in GooGone.  It does look better if I do say so myself.  One of these days (after ALL the ballast it down) I will run a line of phone poles and a fence to keep the cows off the tracks down this section of main line.

 

[bearman]

Installing ballast should be approached as a Zen-like experience.

[CTValleyRR]

bearman

Installing ballast should be approached as a Zen-like experience.

Personally, I think ballasting is like a root canal:  if it's gotta be done, do it quickly and get it over with.

[delray1967]

Whether you like it or hate it, take your time and make sure it gets done right.  It is one of the things that everyone will see all the time, trains running or not.  If it doesn't look good, or if it is sloppy, a LOT more time must be spent fixing it than would have been spent if you slow down a little bit and make sure it looks good.  If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right.  see a lot of modules where the ballast was hastily put down with the owner saying "I'm going to fix that...one day." (that day usually never comes).

Even if you only ballast 1' of track, if you do it right, you will never have to do it again and it will look fantastic forever, trains running or not.  It's amazing how looking at a still photograph of your layout shows the tiniest of errors; take a picture of your recently ballasted right-of-way and check for voids between ties, ballast on top of the ties or stuck to the side of the rail (I know some ballast in the real world ends up on the rail or ties, but aim for that 'clean' look and you won't have to justify it to others (or go back and 'fix' hasty work).

Keep at it and it will eventually be done...if you get tired, or notice your work starting to get sloppy, take a break, or come back to it another day.

Happy ballasting!

[ollevon]

Once all my track is down, and the trains run smoothly with no derailments  I'll start on the scenery in this order working on two or three ft.  sections ,never more then three feet at a time.

(1)  paint & weather track & ties

(2)  ballast the two or three feet

(3) add  mountains, hills or structures

(4) add ground cover, may it be grass, dirt, gravel or roads and trees.

(5) add the fine details to complete the scene.

Again, I try to never get ahead of myself, and when I am satisfied with it, I start the next section in the same order. This might be the slow way of doing things but, it works for me. I might be  between step 3&4 for a few days because, I might be building a kit of a certain type to fit that location, or making trees.  It after all a hobby and I am in no hurry. As you can see I work from the background to the edge of the layout.  The white you see at the bottom is all that's left to do in this scene.

  Sam

[Diamond Jim]

Check out my videos.  Hope they help.

http://wn.com/DiamonJIm6

[MonkeyBucket]

I found the vacuum method quite interesting. The ability to collect the excess ballast was a great idea with this method. Some groovy music to get you in the mood. 

 

Vacuum ballasting