Hi Guys,
I’m having trouble balasting turnouts, without the ballast the cork shines through, with the ballast in place (and glued down) it makes changing the turnout very hard.
The glue mix I’m using (50/50) runs everywhere and seals the turnout closed, if I don’t get to it in time.
Is there any safe way of ballasting turnouts so 1) They look realsitic an 2) They still work when ballasted
Thanks
Ian
I have had some luck with just puting enough ballast down to cover the base and then useing a wetting agent ( dish detergent )( Just a drop or two to my mixture of glue and water ) with my mixture of glue and water useing a eye dropper to put the glue just where I wanted, which was not in the working parts of the turn out but in the ballast. ( don’t forget to clean out your eye dropper, or you will be thankful they are cheap)
Here is what I do: ( I model in HO using Peco turnouts)
When I reach a turnout I apply a little oil to the moving parts, just a small amount, applied with a toothpick, I dip it and then apply.
Then I apply the ballast (sparingly) I use just enough to get coverage, I have found that dumpng it on and brushing it in is wastfull and messy, put down just enough and use a small, very, very soft bru***o spread it out. Then tap!
Tapping is what I do to setlle the ballast, I use (of all things) the foam covered handle of a pair of pliars. I tap the rail heads with the handle and the ballast takes on a very natural look, no highs and lows, it just settles in.
Now, operate the turnout several times to assure it works, remove any excess or troublesome stones.
Now, use a fine mist sprayer, I apply a very light mist of matte medium over the area. Hold the spayer about two feet above the rails. Operate any turnouts affected. I let this dry for a while. Move on down the line, put some ballast down. Then I go back to the turn out with the eye dropper and matte medium. The mist we did earlier by no means locks the ballast in, however, it leaves just a little crust on the top so to speak, that gives the ballast some staying power, as you come through with the eye dropper to saturtate the area completly.
Once the area is saturated, operate the turnout several time and let dry for 12 hours. Once the time has passed, go back and operate the turnout. Have a toothpick ready and maybe a small pin to deal with any stones that need removal or obstruct any part of the operation. Remeber the operation must be perfect, that means a nice clean click as the turnout switches, and ZERO gap between the points and the rails.
Hope this helps
I paint the roadbed a color close to that of the ballast and then use a small bru***o apply elmers glue in a thin layer around turnout where I’m not comfortable with eyedropping glue down and just sprinkle the ballast down with your fingers. If you look at the prototype you will see that the ballast around a switch is not as high on the tie’s as the rest of the track.Randy
Prototype railroads ballast sparingly around switch points for precisely the same reason–so ballast doesn’t foul the switch. They don’t have to worry about glue, of course, but rocks stuck in one’s points and frog is a pain…
I know I’m learning the hard way [sigh]
Ian
I paint the cork roadbed gray before putting the turnout in place, and never ballast between the tip of the points and their hinge, and when I ballast the outsides, I leave a bare area at the throwbar. Ballast will iinvariably come loose and cause the turnout to jam if you ballast the area between the points.
No sweat Challenger, we all learn the hardway [:D]
The wetting agent helps the mattie mediun to go down into the ballast more evenly and do a better job.instead of setting up on top.
[quote]
Originally posted by challenger3802
Hi Guys,
I’m having trouble balasting turnouts, without the ballast the cork shines through, with the ballast in place (and glued down) it makes changing the turnout very hard.
challenger3802
In N I have used without fail so far a layer of household filler, runny but not wet, coloured with powders, ink or paint mixto approximate raodbed colour, or black, they are often very balck areas.
Poke the filler between ties with an old broken brush or stiring stick/ girls eyelash wand!!- then when enough is used, gently spoon a single layer of ballast across the top, tamp gently (clean fingers are ok) and wait to dry and set (+/- 24 hrs).
A toothpick or another stiff bristle brush can be used to dislodge any ‘excess’ from areas not wanted- and a sharp knife can always be used to scrape off any excess if the height was too much for the blades to traverse the gap.
It will only take one or two to gte the knack right…
cheers, dave
Dave, I’m not sure what you mean by household filler. Do you mean something like drywall putty? Thanks for the tip.
That will be similar. We have a variety called PolyFilla, that is a general purpose household or repair gap filler of the ‘old’ non-plastic kind. A gypsum mix but with additives that ‘hard-set’ for permanence. Selleys make a range.
Its usually water soluble to a point and can be weakened to fill small gaps- of course curing time requires dryness/ heat to aid water dispersion and set. But I use it a lot for scenicing small bases (e.g. model soldier scenes), building up walls and contours on cardboard frameworks, and a 1000 and 01 other uses… and have just carried this over without a thought to model rr plans.
trust this helps explain, regards, davew
[8D]
One suggestion used in a book on an N-scale layout (Burlington Northern in Wisconsin?) was to use black electrical tape on the bottom of the turnout, then press ballast against the track, and knock off the excess into the bin. This way you weren’t gluing the points down, but you were also avoiding the peek-a-boo cork.
I also noticed in some mid-20th century views of a local (and no longer existing) yard, the ballast is noticeably absent around the points and switchstand. Painting the cork a dark color, as mentioned above – maybe even your base earth color – would be good.
(The yard I was looking at was in 1966, a shot of the St. Paul East yard on the Chicago, St. Paul, and Omaha --and I may have that name wrong – but it was the place where 3M, Stroh’s brewry, and the Whirlpool manufacturing plant got a lot of their freight from. There’s only a couple of tracks going through these days, and a few passing tracks in the “sand yard” by 3M. The most noteworthy thing was that the East yard was on a 1.3% grade!)
I tried something on the club layout last night (Thursday, Feb 10th). We ballasted the turnouts in the yard so well last month that they all stuck together. I had been using a dental pick to break it all loose, one turnout at a time. I had one end of the yard finished and started on the other end then broke a ground throw. One of the guys suggested using wet water to re-hydrate the point rails and throw rod so that the ballast there could be removed easily. He then suggested that I use oil sparingly on any surface that would move to prevent the glue on it from re-setting. I tried it and it works great! The glue re-hydrates in about 10 minutes, and after picking the loose / errant ballast out of the way, the little bit of oil under the rails makes the turnout work like a brand new, unballasted one. I think I did 10 turnouts last night and they all performed extremely well after the procedure. I want to do this to all the turnouts on the layout.
Unknowns: 1 - I don’t know how much trouble, if any, the oil will cause if and when it collects dirt. The oil was applied to go under the rail, so it is not on the railhead where it will get on the wheels and get spread around. 2 - I don’t know how long the oil will stay in place. It may settle down into the cork roadbed. It was applied on the plastic rail surfaces underneath the moving point rails and on the sides of the throw bars.
The idea was suggested by one of the Lionel guys in the club. It made a bunch of stiff / stuck turnouts work like brand new again.
Mark C.