My railroad, the T&T, is a Death Valley short line that used local dirt as ballast and I am striving for a very dry, beige-white desert sand alkali look. The ground cover and the track ballast are going to be almost the same color. All of the commercial ballasts are way too dark, especially after gluing down.
While at Home Depot yesterday I came across these bags of Polyblend sanded grouts. Some of these colors like “alabaster” and “bone” look about right. My questions concern what else is in these grouts besides sand? Could this be spread between the ties and then sprayed with “wet” water and then dilute while glue or matt medium? The alternative is to hunt for some really whitish mine talings. Opinions? - Nevin
you might not need the glue . i think grout has some kind of adhesive in it already . you mix it with water and spread it over a newly tiled area , forcing it into the gaps between the tiles . you then wipe off the excess grout leaving just the gap filling part to dry .
if i were you , i’d buy a small amount and test it , it might be perfect for your situation
note: this is based on my observation of pro tile guys doing this work . i don’t actually know anything about grout except it gets dirty in the shower and you have to clean it [:)]
ernie
p.s. i don’t know about home depot , but if you go to a store that sells only tiles you can buy small amounts of grout rather than the prepackaged stuff at HD
I have never used grout as ballast, but I have used it as grout. This has a sanded concrete as part of it ingredients. It is very dusty in a dry form. It would have to be pour out and then leveled and have either water or latex additive sprayed onto it. It may even float on the surface of the water or latex. I would really advise against it.
However, as a material going over foam for scenery, it may work pretty well. The trick would be to have mix and then trowl it on the foam. The latex additive makes it less prone to cracking and gives better adhesion. I would try it on foam and see how it works. I would definately not use it as ballast.
Scott Kremer’s layout story in the Feb 2008 Model Railroader described his use of tile grout for ground cover, ground white marble for snow, and branches from cast-off artificial christmas trees for confiers on his layout.
The grout is going to become very hard and cause sounds to resonate through your benchwork like a drum. Leaving the grout dry can be a problem if you ever need to clean your layout with a brush or vacuum.
The smallest quantity of dry grout you can purchase at a store like Home Depot is around 7 pounds, which is enough to ballast a large club layout. Take a small container such as an empty yogurt cup or baby food jar to a store that sells tile, tell them what you want to try, and see if they have some spilled grout they’ll give you for free.
I agreee with Larry about the use of grout. Almost any tile grout found today is already latex fortified. Just add water.
I have found it to work well for scenery, but would not reccommend it for ballast. The grout is very dusty and will leave a stubborn residue on the ties/ track. I have plastic pails that I mix grout in that have grout permanantly stuck to the plastic. Immagine how it will bond on those plastic ties. The actual finish will not resemble any ballast I’ve seen also.
If you do plan to use it for any application, use the sanded for floors not unsanded (creamy) wall grout.
I don’t use grout as ballast, but I found a few shortcuts that work for me. Before laying track on the roadbed, I use Textured Paint from Plasti-Kote or Rustoleum. It sprays on a nice rough texture in multiple colors that looks amazingly like ballast (at least in N-sacale). Available in a wide range of colors.
Then I ballast between the rails in the old-fashioned way; loose ballast sprayed with thinned glue. To touch up ballast in various spots, I mix some tempura paints to the right color, then add ballast directly into the paint. You have to rinse the brush often, because of build-up but it looks very realistic.
As long as someone mentioned Home Depot, I found some Pre-mixed Stucco Patch in 1-quart tubs, which I also use for touching up some ballast, but mostly for scenery. It goes on like plaster, but with sand already mixed in. I also use plaster mixed with sawdust, tempura paint, or sand for some scenery.
Someone has done it, and written about it, but I can’t remember where I read it. They applied it “wet” as grout, and cleaned it up, like they were grouting, it I remember correctly. With the spacing of ties, you might want to use non-sanded grout rather than sanded, the sand particles might be too big in the sanded grout.
HD here has small cans of the stuff for a few bucks. IIRC, the can is about 1.5 times the size of a soda can in volume. I’ll look tonight if I remember.
I mixed some sifted beach sand into unsanded grout and tried it for N-scale ballasting. It worked and looked ok as long as I cleaned up the ties and rails before it set. Turns out I didn’t use it for ballast on my layout but I did use it as “ground goop”. Somebody swears by it for modeling sunken yard tracks. I might experiment with it on an HO test layout.
If you try it, make sure you wear rubber gloves. The powder might also be an inhalation hazard.
I am going to give it a try on a extra piece of track this weekend and report back. Meanwhile I took a trip up to Virginia City and got a bucket of sifted whitish tan mine tailings which I will probably use for ballast.
Using mine tailings for ground cover was taught to me by Dale Darney who was a great modeler and an expert on the V&T railroad. - Nevin