Time to “dirty up” the area around my Cornerstone ash pit and conveyor.
I just searched out some older threads and found that some of you use actual ashes from your fireplace. For those of you that do, how do you adhere your ashes to the layout? Or do you just scatter them and they lay loose? Having not tried this yet, I would guess that adding and water or glue to the mix would make a big mess of the ashes.
Are there alternatives that are easier to work with and are less (potentially) messy? I was looking at the Arizona Rock website and saw that they used to offer a material for use in an ash pit (no longer available according to the site). Any idea what this material was?
Pictures are worth a thousand words if you have any examples for me to use for inspiration.
I don’t know if I would recommend using real ashes…or how to "glue them’
but, I would think the appropriate colors of artists acrylics paints{blacks, grays, ashen colors, laid out in thick globs and mixed together and stippled to make the various hues with a fine brush would work if you let the pile of paint dry in place.
I haven’t tried this, but it would be my first thought and try.
Too early for my era but in Paul Scoles videos- #2 I think- he used ashes from the FP and diluted white glue. It looked very convincing. All of his DVDs are worthy of anyone’s collection
Like a few other things we model, using the “real thing” is not necessarily the best way to go. Real ashes, coal, some dirt/rocks, are just too messy or difficult to place on a layout.
I also have the ash facility, and plan on using some fine grey ballast and gluing it in piles, etc., and then painting with greys, browns, and a dab of red here and there as I did on my previous layout.
I used real ashes from the locomotives of Cass, West Virginia. Visitors give an appreciative “really?” when I tell them that the ashes are actually from a locomotive like that on the layout.
There was no muss or fuss to this. For the pile of ashes down in the ash pit, I simply soaked on diluted white glue (with the drop of detergent as a wetting agent) and then sprinkled on a little more dry ashes to restore the rough top surface. In the area around the ash pit, I spread white glue full strength and then sprinkled on the ashes. Once things were dry, I lightly vacuumed the area. - pretty much the same as any other groundcover -
A zip-lock of ashes goes a long way and lasts a long time.
Locomotives dump ashes and cinders. I am going to use the WS fine black cinders, a very little light gray, and some red iron mixed together. Mostly black with just a touch of the other colors, then hold it down just like ballast.