We’ve all seen how much a small container of Railroad scenery ballast costs as well as decorative stone…recently after 45 yrs of buying HO Scale trains and buildings and storing them away for the day i could build a layout i finally got to build a layout…when it come time to build my layout i was looking at spending alot of money on the little things like tree’s and road bed and cork for the track and after adding it up i seen i had to devise some short cuts as im on a fixed income and i wanted this to look good as well …soo i bought some unscented kitty litter went to Wal Mart and bought several bottles of Apple Barrel paint at $0.59 a bottle the kitty litter was $2.75 and i mixed a batch of kitty litter with a bottle of Green for Grass used a 2 Quart container and mixed it up what i got was a massive mess of green dissolving clay kitty litter…i took that and spread it on a cookie tin and baked it at 350 degree’s for 1 hour then took it out and put it all on an old towel and left it to dry naturally over night,next day i woke to my 1st batch of usable green kitty litter or as i like to call it poor boy ballast…here’s a link to a slide show of that layout showing all the different colors i made and how nice it makes this layout look…im limited for room so this is only a 4x8 layout but i made good use of every inch of that space…
Kitty litter was discussed back in (and has been used since) the time I joined the forums in early 2005. It should be in several of the archived discussions on the best ballast, or alternatives to commercial scale products. As I recall, it wasn’t received favourably by those participating in the discussion, and at least one person said it was a bust. However, even if it won’t work well for main ballast, it could be great in a yard, wetted and spread out, maybe painted up so that it looks like mud or dirt.
I used local beach sand. I got a beautiful sunny day walk along the beach out of it, too.
You might be better to look for bird crop grit sold in pet stores, or the filter sand for acquariums.
There’s one brand of cat litter that does not have clumping agents, so it can be used as HO ballast right out of the jug – Cat’s Pride.
It’s made by Oil Dri Corporation. Their main business is cleaning up oil spills.
Cat’s Pride is ground up Kaolin clay with nothing else added.
It is also good for cleaning up oil spills in your garage or carport.
We ballasted an entire HO scale club layout with Cat’s Pride. Once it’s glued down and becomes solid, a cat would not try to use it even if we did have one in the clubhouse.
i didnt glue this down if i change my mind about adding or removing some thing i can easily sweep up what ive laid down and reuse it…if u went to that link i posted u will see i added and removed alot of things from that layout before finally settiling on whats there now and after my newest layouts thru im thinking about doing away wityh the militarty portion and going more urban or old town
Another cheap ballast you could try is crushed walnut shells from the aviary section of the pet store. Same stuff Woodland Scenics use but much - ahem - cheeper [:D] You can get a big bag for very little outlay.
Only colour I’ve seen is brown, though, and while the grains are not big, it may be too coarse for some tastes.
It’s my understanding that there is a concoction that Lou Sassi came up with for ground cover call “ground goop” which is made with vermiculite. After vacuuming up a nice sized pile of it from the back of my truck this afternoon after the wet bag my wife placed in the back tore open and spilled all over the danged place I can see how it could be used for such. At less then $20.00 for a50lb bag I guess that qualifies as cheap. I have used colored art sand as found in the craft stores for ground cover on occasion. It’s very fine and I used the black stuff as filler in my servicing yard as fine cinders. All that aside some of Harley Smith’s ballast arguably some of if not the finest ballast out there only sells for $2.50/lb not a bad deal as far as I’m concerned. I really don’t know what the rest of his stuff sells for as he doesn’t include prices with his order sheets? You need to be careful what you use for ballast and ground cover in some area’s as some rock have hi iron contend enough so to cause electrical shorts. Another free source of ground cover is real dirt. what looks more like real dirt then real dirt? Sift it put it in the oven to dry it out to kill any microbes or critters living it in and sift it again. It look good providing the color of the dirt where u live is the same color as the dirt in the area you want to model.
Other than being a little out of scale I think it looks pretty good. Perhaps you can find a grinder of somekind and break it down a little bit more. Oh yeah, and I love the McDonald’s next to the military base!!! LOL
Actually its no bigger or smaller than a package of ballast i purchased for an HO layout from my local hobby store its what made me think of the kitty litter…as for the McDonald’s that was made by Avon in the 70s as a reproduction of a 50’s style McDonald i got it brand new in the box at a yard sale for $0.25 and ive found it to be worth a heck of alot more but only after putting it into play on my board…that cemetery is comprised of a few pain in the ass scenic woodland headstones the rest i made myself…thanks for ur feedback
I’m amazed that you found kitty litter practical for ballast. I think a much better way to ballast a layout on a budget is to invest in a sack of silicone sandblasting grit, medium grade. It comes in either black or gravel color ( light gray ). To get a weathered look to it, I poured about ten pounds of it in a bucket, added water and then brown masonry stain. I mixed it around until I had a brown soup and than poured off the liquid, put the wet grit on a cookie sheet and baked it in the oven at low heat until it was dry again. It looked like weathered brown ballast like you see on heavily travelled mainlines. Last time I looked a ninety pound sack of sandblasting grit cost around $10.00 and I ballasted several hundred feet of mainline and sidings and still had some left over. To see the result go to www.fsmrrc.org, cliick on photo gallery and click on “Jim Valle’s basement layout.”