How do you guys keep ballast off the top of the ties while ballasting track? I find it a pain to keep it off, so I end up having to pick it off after with a screwdriver or somthing…any tips?
My experiece was that at first I put too much ballast between the rails. IMO less is more. Tapping the rail will cause a lot of it to pop off and then you can finish the job of clearing the ties. I prefer using a small foam brush that has been cut to fit between the rails.
It all starts with not using too much ballast.
Bob
I agree with Bob. You are putting down too much ballast. Less is more.
Rich
Ah, thanks guys!
Pour in a bunch.
With a medium-stiff artist’s brush about 12 mm wide, spread the ballast down the rails until almost all of it is distributed fairly nicely and cleanly except for the stuff stuck up against the rail web and some grains still on top of the ties.
Take hold of the brush end and tap the rails here and there with the handle of the brush. Use a wooden dowel if you wish. The few grains that are still misplaced will move off to join the others by about the fifth or sixth tap. Repeat as necessary, and use a toothpick to flick off the annoying ones that just won’t move on with their lives.
Crandell
Less is more.
While the folks above are right – don’t use too much, there’s another factor. Sometimes, if you don’t wet it properly, it FLOATS up there when you put the adhesive on. After pushing the excess ballast out of the way with a stiff bristled brush and taping the rails as above, I wet the ballast with a mixture of 70% isopropyl alcohol (the strength you buy it in, generally) and dilute it 1:1 with water, for an end strength of 35% alcohol. I dribble this mixture on the ties, where it both washes stray ballast off and wicks into all the other ballast.
Then I dribble the adhesive on the ties again, so that no ballast washes or floats up on to the ties. I can ballast many feet of track and not get more than a grain or two of ballast out of place.
Most helpful guys, thank you!
This is a real problem with poor quality ballast like Woodland Scenics. It’s made from walnut shells and behaves very differently from ballast made of real rock. A product like Scenic Express, Highball or Arizona Rock is much less likely to be displaced when wetting or gluing.
I have been using Scenic Express real stone ballast on my On30 PC & KC RR. It works just great. I had gotten very tired of the “lightness” of Woodland Scenics ballast.
I have been using Highball for years. Real rock that if wet properly won’t float. Doug
As with everything else in our hobby, There are tradeoffs. For my money, the extra expense isn’t worth it. You can keep WS ballast from floating, too, as I describe above, but improperly wetted ballast of any composition – rock, walnut shells, whatever – WILL float in the adhesive mixture.
I have both WS and Highball ballast on my current layout. They’re visually indistinguishable. I went back to WS after deciding that the extra $$$ wasn’t really buying me anything. Besides, the OP didn’t mention what he was using, and it’s a good bet, given the availability of the WS product at retail stores, that’s what he has.
So, noting that there are more expensive alternatives with which he may have better luck is good advice; suggesting that he throw out his existing supply and go get some “better” stuff, not so much (and no, I’m not suggesting that anyone above either said or implied this… before anyone gets bent out of shape).
I’ve never had any problems with WS ballast floating, either, and as CTVALLEYRR noted, the secret is in the wetting. I use ordinary tap water with a few drops of liquid dish detergent added, and even ground foam won’t float away.
While my layout has been done using WS ballast, a friend gave me several large containers of real limestone ballast, in fine, medium, and coarse sizes. It looks fantastic, although it doesn’t match what’s already in place. I plan on using some of it to ballast the yet-to-be-built tracks of an interchange partner, while the rest will serve as “live” hopper and gondola loads from an as-yet unbuilt quarry:
While he had to screen it himself, total cost was $5.00 for half a ton. [swg]
Wayne
Just a gee-whiz on cost:
As of today, the 32 oz. size of Woodland Scenics ballast at Scenic Express is $11.99 http://www.sceneryexpress.com/products.asp?dept=1108&pagenumber=2&sort_on=&sort_by= , while the same size container of real rock ballast under the Scenic Express brand is $11.98 http://www.sceneryexpress.com/products.asp?dept=1107&pagenumber=2&sort_on=&sort_by=.
At least that brand of the “good stuff” is virtually identical in cost to WS. My bet is the widespread availability of WS brand in stores, to the exclusion of other brands in so many cases, solely explains its prevalence on layouts. Lots of people are simply unaware there are alternatives.
And yes, it’s possible to get good results from WS brand, as I have, and both CT Valley and Wayne have noted. Unfortunately, for many modelers, WS brand seems harder to use. It’s more finicky to wet and glue even for me, and I’ve had much experience building scenery and ballasting track, going back many years. Beginners and other less experienced modelers frequently state that ballasting is among the hardest tasks in the hobby, and I can’t help but think the use of WS ballast is a big part of that.
This isn’t to say the OP’s trouble stemmed from using WS, but I have a hunch…
Problem is, all these brands you guys are all talking about, I have not seen them here in Australia before.
Good to know. What are you using, and do you know what it’s made of? Is it rock?
I’m using the Woodland Scenics stuff, apparently you guys say it’s made from walnut shells? It’s the only stuff in the LHS…I would like to try the other stuff, but then it’d probably cost a lot to ship here from the USA, plus I’d like to keep colour continuity now that I’ve started with the WS stuff. Here’s a photo of my first efforts. 
And by the way, this is my first serious layout I am working on.(It’s HO scale) (I did an N Scale on a few years back, but that was with EZ track so I never had any problems with ballast obviously lol!)
Ahhh… I suspected this was the case, and yes I believe it’s crushed walnut shells. The results you’re getting look quite similar to typical WS ballast applications I see. It’s mostly the product - not you.
Honestly, it doesn’t look THAT bad. Try using your fingers, or a piece of something soft like balsa wood, and try to rub the excess from the tops of the ties and sides of the rails. Touch up any places where the paint is damaged in the process. What you have does look salvageable.
For the future, one way to avoid the floating that appears to be the cause of the problem is to ensure you’re wetting the ballast enough for glue to be absorbed, but not so much there isn’t sufficient pore space left for the glue to soak in too. Sometimes that can be a balancing act. Good luck.
I’ve used both the W/S brand, as well as “real ballast”. I went to a quarry where CSX gets real ballast, and bought some 200 pounds of “sand” (I forget the specific grade of the material I bought). I ran it though a couple different sizes of screen sifters to get a “ballast size”, separating the rest into separate containers. I ran a magnet over and through to remove any magnetic particles. The color was fairly uniform, so I mixed it roughly 2/3 - 1/3 with W/S grey for a mix that “looked about right” to me.
Once the ballast was spread, lightly brushed, and ready for glue, I had to practice and experiment a bit. My first few efforts weren’t as successful. I found that I needed more than just a few drops of liquid dish detergent to break the surface tension of water so as to pre-wet the ballast. A mister helped prevent the washing of dry ballast. Alcohol does the same, without the surface tension of water. I learned that using the glue sparingly will leave you a “crust” of glued ballast on top, and loose under that. Glue is cheap. Use a lot.
I don’t have a layout in the ballast stage at this point, but I’ve learned from quite a few mistakes in the past. I’d not hesitate to use the W/S ballast again, if that’s what I had on hand. I prefer the “heft” of real material myself, but if it’s a portable layout, weight might be a concern.
Brad
Thank you for the encouragement and tips.