I am running into problems as I am trying to ballast the track on my layout and am looking for any hints, help or comments from those in the know. Here’s my problem - I do pretty good laying the ballast (woodland scenics fine, gray blend) and getting it to a point that I believe looks very good. Second, I wet with a 50/50 water/alcohol mix. After overcoming some poor spray bottles, I found one that sprays a mist fine enough that it won’t leave craters and globs of “stone”. I try to secure the ballast with an Elmers white glue/water mix. The problem is, no matter how slow I try to drop it, dab it or ease it onto the track, it runs down hill taking ballast with it leaving me with track that looks like it was washed out! I’ve increased my Elmers ratio to 60/40, but I don’t want to go any heavier in case the mixture won’t dry clear. My roadbed isn’t that thick, being N-scale thickness for HO-scale track, because I am modeling a branch line with no serious main line interchanges (yet). I have tried an eve dropper, a spoon and a turkey baster! Any suggestions on a tried and true method of securing my ballast without ruining my set-up would be greatly appreciated. I am open to suggestions on tools, materials or any other help from those who have already climbed this hill.
Thank you in advance, dan.
Dan,
I use a very similar method to the one you describe. I dilute the white glue 2 parts water to 1 glue. Spray with alcohol (70%) then dribble the glue-water mix with an old white glue bottle or in some cases an eyedropper.
I also use WS fine ballast. I can’t see anything different but it works OK for me.
[:)]
It sounds like you’re getting the ballast too soggy. The ballast can only accept so much moisture before it becomes saturated and starts to wash out. I’ve found that Woodland Scenics ballast is more susceptible to this problem than ballast made from sifted rock, but any scenery material will wash away if you saturate it. I use a mixture of water and isopropyl alcohol as a wetting agent, and only apply it until the ballast looks like it’s barely starting to get soaked; if the surface of the ballast looks really wet (i.e. there’s enough wetting agent that the spaces between the grains are visibly filling up) it probably doesn’t have enough capacity left for the glue to soak in. It’s essentially the same process that creates a mudslide - the ground can only soak up so much rain before it starts to slump off.
Yeah, it sounds like you’re wetting the ballast too much before you add the glue mix. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. If you get glue runoff, add a bit of ground foam to it, and it’ll soak up and disappear.
Hi Dan,
I don’t think your ballast is too soggy – it sounds more like it’s not wet enough if the glue is running off the ballast. Try this: instead of diluting the rubbing alcohol, spray it on straight, and use the highest percentage solution you can find – 70 percent is good, but 90 percent is better. Then dilute your white glue to a 4:1 water:glue ratio instead of 50:50. As you dribble on the glue, if it doesn’t soak into the ballast right away, spritz it with more alcohol. You don’t need a lot of glue, but you do need to get it in between all the ballast grains. If your ballst tends to float away, try using something heavier. I use real roack ballst from Smith & Sons, also available on the Scenic Express Web site.
Good luck,
Andy
Andy’s comments do suggest further analysis…if the glue is going into the ballast before it slumps away, the ballast is probably too wet; if the glue balls up on the surface and runs off before soaking in at all, it’s not wet enough. When using light ballast materials like Woodland Scenics, I’ve had good luck starting the application of glue with a fine mist sprayer. Successive applications can be done with an Elmer’s bottle or eyedropper because the first one should bond the shape in place sufficiently to prevent washouts. I also was finding that the sprayer helped to prevent ballast from creeping back up onto the tops of the ties or sides of the rails.
Also, if the ballast you’re using has any oiliness to it it can really resist accepting glue. I used some real dirt that did have this problem, which was overcome by wetting with a higher proportion of alcohol.
i ballast by first pouring a slight bit of ballast material (usually woodland scenics ballast) between the rails and then on the outside of the rails …i then take a small dry paint brush and brush across the ties until every piece of ballast is between a tie (it’s a slow tedious process)…then I take a spray bottle, fill it with water, and mix about 8 drops of liquid dish detergent into it…I then spray it just enough to get the ballast soaked throughly but not so wet that it runs in small streams out from under the ballast…i then take a large 10 cc syringe with a small 1/8" dia. X 3" long piece of rubber tubing and attach it to where the needle is supposed to go (the tube is great for glue control) and fill it with a 50 / 50 mixture of water and white glue…I then drizzle the glue / water mixture on top of the ballast…then…one more quick spraying with the water and i’m done…haven’t had any problems so far…Chuck[:D]
I apply the first droplets of glue/water by touching the droplet to the outside of the rail or the tie ends, letting its surface tension pull it down into the ballast. Once a pass like this is made, then I go ahead and dribble into the center of the ties and down the ballast slope, because the glue has already infiltrated to some extent. And, another hint is that you don’t need to fear sculpting the ballast profile while it is wet; I just use my fingertips to pu***hings back into place if they get gullied out. Yes, this is delicate, since you can end up with large amounts of ballast sticking to your fingers rather than staying on the ground where it belongs, but go ahead and do it and you’ll get a feel for what can be done. One final hint is this: you don’t have to ballast it all in one pass. You can come back later and add a top coat of ballast, just to smooth out the aberrations, and when you glue that thin layer of granules, they won’t move as readily because the previous ballast is holding them in place. You might even consider a two-pass approach as the norm, reserving finer and more expensive ballast product for the visible topmost layer. Also, this would allow you to replicate new ballast (perhaps even of a different color) applied over older, weed-grown rights-of-way or cinders.
Actually, that’s my favorite way of scuplting still-wet ballast, which is to sprinkle a little bit more dry ballast on top; this way the fingers don’t stick.
Try not glueing it down at all. I use gray kitty litter, has been down for 10+ years with no problems. It’s easy to make changes to track plans. Iuse cork roadbed and the track is painted railbrown, sprinkle it on and spread it out with a small flat brush, just be careful around turnouts not to get it into throwbars. It’s easily vacuumed up and very cost
effective. Ihave nearly 900 feet of track laid and have no performance problems with the trains.
I thought I was the only one to use EMD SD 40’s no glue technique. I’m in HO, so I don’t know how well it will work in N. I use an old hand-turned sausage grinder to break my kitty litter or oil-dry down to the size I want. I use a flanger to profile the ballast. I’ve made an adaptor for my shop vac that is reduced down to a drinking straw to clean up and sculpt the ballast. I use a small amount of the diluted white glue/water mix around the points on turnouts.
A number of you suggest using rubbing alcohol to make the water “wet.” Have any of you tried this on a layout built with extruded polystyrene foam? I’m curious if the rubbing alcohol melts the foam.
Thom,
My layout is mostly blue foam and I use 70% and 90% alcohol with no problems (Don’t get the 90% stuff on your rolling stock!).
Of course most of my layout is either painted with latex or plastered by the time I start using the alcohol.
Try a bit on a scrap of foam to see for yourself.
I love using silicone caulk(clear) which can be placed where you want it wipe off excess then sift ballast onto this and shop vac off after drys and excess ballast, this will hold well and is slow to set up.