I am thinking about using tile grout for the ground area of a steel mill. I will do a small trial first and use it as the ballast for the track also.
Would it be best to use sanded or non-sanded grout?
Rick
I experimented last year with using premixed, unsanded vinyl grout as a paving material and was very happy with the result. I thinned it with water. You’ll have to experiment to determine the right amount of water but remember it’s always easier to add water than take it out so add a little at a time.
Both actually. If you use it as uncleaned, no maintenance ballast. The sanded will work. The unsanded version will work for other areas. The sand adds a rough texture. You can buy he sand separate. And mix into unsanded grout so you only make what you need. You won’t use near the sanded as unsanded. So I would buy the sand separate. Also you can get many pigments. So buy just white grout and add pigments to small batches (and keep track of your ratios). That way you create all the color variations over the grounds of a steal mill. You can mix pigments to custom color.
shane
Thanks for the replies.
My thought was to get gray or black and put it in place dry, they spray water over it to make is set. Would that work?
Rick
I have used grout many times. The way I apply it is I paint the surface with white glue and sprinkle the grout powder on it. For a gravel parking lot, I then add fine ballast and give it a fine spray of glue/water mix. You can also add weeds and other greenery the same way.
I have adjusted the colour using the airbrush and/or washes.
I have also painted the surface with dark leftover latex paint and sprinkled the grout on that before it dried. Always good to start with a very dark under surface.
yes that would work fine. The way Brent does his is another workable option
shane
I always hated grout.
I love laying tile but in my custom bathrooms and kitchens I would bring someone else in to put the mud in the joints.
I remember doing an experiment about four years ago. I didn’t have any grout, just thinset. I did about a 20 minute experiment carving some foam and painting the thin set on.
It was Pro Flex Platinum. I think the lime in that masonry product started to eat it and the results were pretty decent. They had to be as nothing else was applied to that pink foam.
TF
I had ballasted the ground around my roundhouse at Mount Forest, and the shops at Lowbanks, using Woodland Scenics “fine” cinders, which weren’t as fine as I would have liked, as the LPBs could easily twist an ankle trying to walk on them.
I decided to add some unsanded black grout, using a paper cup to apply it, then a soft 1/2" brush to spread it around.
I then spayed the entire area with “wet” water, and let it dry. The next day, the areas covered didn’t look all that much better, as the wetted grout had mostly disappeared into the black cinders.
Another application of grout (a little more of it this time) was added, and the next day, things looked a little better.
I decided that it would look better if I were to add some spills of oil and water, so used a brush to apply some clear, high-gloss Varathane (the same stuff as used on my layout’s water scenes).
The next day, the glossy effect had almost disappeared, so I added another application, and the next day, had similar results. Two or three sessions later, I finally had some recognisable “spills & leaks”.
Some photos (click on them for a bigger view)…
The unsanded grout, in appropriate colours, is also useful for “gravel” roads and parking lots, as it will help to make the gravel look more reasonably-sized than the “boulder-sized” stuff that is often used.
Wayne
First let me say I have never done any tile work and don’t know anything about these products.
I went into Home Depot today to see if I could learn something. Unfortunately the shelves were half bare. I was hoping that there would be some bags with leakage so I could see what the stuff looked like. The only thing that I could see was mortar, but one of those bags looked like the color I want.
I had read of Wayne’s project in another thread and that’s what got me thinking about going this route. Originally I was just going to use the Woodland Scenics fine ballast everywhere. After seeing the mortar I thought maybe I could just mix that with the WS ballast and spread it dry. A dousing with wet water would make it set and then I could go back and touch up.
Is this a stupid idea?
Rick
Not stupid, but I think that you might get better (more permanent) results by ballasting the tracks in a conventional manner: ballast applied dry, and properly “groomed”, then sprayed with “wet” water, followed by an application of diluted white glue.
Once that has set-up, add either mortar or unsanded grout in a suitable colour, then spray it with the “wet” water…that should settle it into the ballast, rather than wasting those products mixed in with the ballast.
Despite having posted it fairly often, I’ll include my procedure for ballasting:
I keep seeing comments about people dreading having to ballast their tracks, or, from people who’ve tried and not had success, and about what a crummy task it is. What follows is my procedure for ballasting - there are other methods that work as well, but this one uses readily-available and cheap tools and materials. And it works!
The choice of ballast is up to you - I use both Woodland Scenics Fine Ballast , and real rock ballast, too, on my HO scale layout, but there are many other brands and sizes available, and plenty of colours. If you use natural materials, like sand, dirt, or decomposed rock, it’s best to use a magnet to remove any magnetic inclusions that might possibly damage the motors in your locos.
To ballast your track, I find that a small paper cup (such as those kitchen or bathroom Dixie cups) gives you great control over where the ballast goes. I usually move the cup along the centre of the track, tapping it as I go, to keep the ballast flowing. Less than you need is better than too much, although a soft 1/2" brush is useful for pushing around the excess or levelling what’s in place. Don’t use the brush to brush the ballast around, especially the WS ballast, as it’s very light and will fly all over the place. &
I had read this in another thread and it is what got me thinking about using the grout. Looking at your pictures I can’t tell if you used it between the rails of the track?
Rick
Figuring I needed to better understand what I was going to be working with I found this at Wikipedia:
Although both grout and its close relative mortar are applied as a thick emulsion and harden over time, grout is distinguished by its low viscosity and lack of lime (added to mortar for pliability); grout is thin so it flows readily into gaps, while mortar is thick enough to support not only its own weight, but also that of masonry placed above it.
Is the lime in mortar a problem with track or scenery? I don’t have any foam to worry about. Otherwise it sounds like that might be the better product if the particle size is between sanded and un-sanded grout.
Rick
Yeah, everywhere that there was the Woodland Scenics “cinders”, I applied the dry, unsanded black grout.
I bought the unsanded grout from a store specialising in flooring…a buck for a 1 lb. bag. I simply dumped some into a paper cup, then meted it out wherever there were “cinders”, then spread it around using a soft 3/4" brush. I then sprayed the entire area with “wet” water, and let it dry overnight.
Where necessary, I added more grout, and spray…the whole exercise was mainly to make the WS “cinders” look smaller, like the stuff formerly used for paths alongside tracks or pretty-well anywhere around rail yards or railway structures
I don’t know much about mortar, but lime was often used to dispose of dead bodies…I doubt that it would dissolve LPBs, but it might have an adverse effect on track or other on-layout items.
Wayne
Having spent over 50 years in steel mills literally around the world the predominant ground cover is tennis ball size chunks of slag throughout the mill. 99% of it is a metallic light gray color. It still has a little iron or steel in it.
That is an interesting observation and is different than mine. I have been in a number of steel mills although only in Delaware and Pennsylvania. I live less than 10 miles from Steelton, PA which was settled in 1866 when the original mill was built there. I haven’t been in the plant for 40 years but I never thought walking around was difficult.
Over the years some of the site has come to no longer be used but it has not been reclaimed. I was able to get to a part recently that is outside the current fence and scoop up some of the stuff that makes up the ground cover. It was primarily stone ranging from 1/4" to 3/4" with much smaller stuff mixed in to make it almost like the last phase of road stone before asphalt is laid.
Maybe this has something to do with OSHA.
In HO scale the Woodland Scenics fine ballast is supposed to represent 0.9" to 2.9" stone. I am going to do the ground with it a see how it looks. If I think it needs help I will add the grout.
Rick
Same here. The steel plant where I spent almost four decades had paved roads where most cars and over-the-road-trucks needed to pass, and gravel (or possibly crushed slag) where the heavy duty in-plant wheeled machinery needed to operate.
There were a lot of tracks, too, and all of it had fairly fine ballast, that wasn’t all that difficult to walk on…not at all like the mainline stuff you’d see nowadays, but of course the speeds were much slower, too.
The only places I saw mills with non-concrete (or steel) floors, were where ingots needed to be laid down or stacked or where slabs were being scarfed or piled.
A couple of photos…
Wayne
Wayne, what about the floor of a blast furnace or EAF? Were the tracks imbedded in concrete or were they just ballasted?
Rick
I never worked in any of the company’s five blast furnaces, but I’d guess that the hearth floor would be either concrete or steel plate, while the ground where the torpedo cars were filled would have been gravel. A spill on concrete or plate steel would likely be rather “exciting”.
There were no electric arc furnaces there, but there were five open hearths where most of the steel was made (four were 300 tonners, the fifth 500 tons) There were also another four older open hearths used for creating small heats of some very "exotic " grades of steel.
All of the open hearths were eventually replaced with B.O.F.s.
I wish I had saved the three large books which contained the “recipe” for every grade of steel we produced.
When U.S. Steel bought the plant, apparently it was the order books (which were very much related to the books which I mentioned) that they were after. In a few years, U.S.Steel was gone.
The plant is under new (and apparently competent) management, and still making coke and doing finishing of steel products, but not actually producing any steel at that site.
There is one blast furnace remaining, three larg-ish B.O.F.s, and a continuous caster, all soon to be torn down.
I can’t really speak for my co-workers, but I will certainly miss the behemouth that it was.
Wayne
Thanks. Were the floors of the open hearths and B.O.F.s. gravel?
Rick
I was never in the open hearth buildings, but I’d guess where the torpedo cars were used, it would have been gravel.
The charging side of the hearths may have been concrete, possibly with rails imbedded in it, for adding scrap or additives to each particular heat.
The B.O.F. building had gravel floors where the ladles were filled (or repaired), but again, I didn’t see much of that department, either.
I don’t recall the exact numbers, but the plant occupied well over 1,000 acres, and there were another 3 or 4 mills of the same company, spread around the city. They made pretty-well everything that could be made with steel, from screws and nails, rebar, chain-link fence, barbed wire, along with all sorts of stuff for automobile and rail cars, all the way up to armour plate for the U.S. Armed Forces.
Our rolling mill had a 3 year contract for rolling skelp, which went to a related mill that formed it into spiral oil- and gas-pipe. Our mill alone was doing over 3 million tons a year, and there were two others rolling smaller ingots for re-bar and various types of wire.
I have a largish photo in my workshop showing an aerial view of most of the plant. I’ll see if I can cram it into one post-able photo.
Wayne