I’m building/buying cars and locomotives for my first layout and it’s going along fine. However, I purchase Woodland Scenics Fine Ballast Cinders and the woodland Foam tack glue. I pour some ballast (with the glue) in-between my code 80 rails that is nail to (2) 4 inch foam boards and I waited for a couple of hours.
i inspect on my work and the ballast didn’t stick as I expected.
How do I get my ballast to stick to my layout without making a big mess?
I can’t be certain, but I would suspect your glue mixture to be the problem. If you are using the W/S ballast that comprises ground bits of walnut shell, that stuff will want to float if you puddle glue around it. As it floats, it moves.
I would urge you to do two things:
a. Get some real mineral ballast, say from Arizona Rock & Mineral, or look at the filter sands used in aquariums that will be sold at pet stores if you can find a suitable colour.
b. For glue, use a diluted white or carpenter glue, Mix one part glue to four parts water, and add three drops of liquid dish detergent.
c. Okay, three things. Before you use the glue, pre-wet the ballast gently using a syringe and the isopropyl alcohol mix you get at the drug stores…70%. Thoroughly peneterate the groomed ballast first with the alcohol, and then dribble carefully the glue.
Let it sit untouched for at least 8 hours, overnight for sure. In a damp basement that is largely unheated, probably 28-36 hours.
Good luck.
Crandell
Hi, LMD Manning,
Ballast needs to be glued down with a thin glue that will penetrate and soak in, so every grain will be bonded. I use Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement at home. Others use white glue thinned with water. Using a pipette to drip rubbing alcohol into the ballast makes whatever glue you use soak in a lot better, since it breaks the surface tension of water. Cody Grivno gives a great tutorial of how to apply ballast in the upcoming part 3 of our Virginian Ry. project railroad. Look for that article in March’s issue. (Or if you don’t want to wait two months, check out how we did it on our Bay Junction project railroad in the February 2011 issue, page 50. Ballasting technology hasn’t changed since then.)
A couple of questions immediately come to mind.
First, are you sure you want to use the WS Cinders for ballast? The black color is not usually part of the prototype, more likely it would be gray or a blend of gray and dark gray or some other lighter color of stone.
Second, Fine scale ballast is OK for N scale, but if you are working in HO scale, wouldn’t Medium scale ballast be better? That’s what a lot of us use.
After you apply and groom the ballast, spray it with 70% rubbing alcohol, then apply a water:glue mix, a ratio of 2:1, 3:1, or even 4:1 over the wet ballast. Simply using Woodland Scenics Foam Tack Glue without diluting it with water will surely cause a big mess.
Rich
My layout is a N scale freelance layout that includes a steel mill. I’m using the Cinder ballast only for the steel mill location for the look of spilled coal. I will use either real sawdust or ballast that look like sawdust for my logging camp and lumber mill industries. I will use another type of ballast for the rest of my layout.
Thank you for the advice.
I will go look at a pet store and try to get the feel and picture the filter rocks on my layout. Just wondering, would crazy or super glue work as well since they do stick quite strong?
Thank you as well.
Heavens no, do not use crazy glue or super glue. A water:white glue mix, anywhere from a 2:1 to 4:1 ratio, will do quite nicely, preceded by a spray of 70% rubbing alcohol to wet the ballast and facilitate absorption of the glue mix.
You would do well to stick with the Woodland Scenics Fine Cinders for ballast on your N scale track around the steel mill, so I would look no further.
Rich
Is it safe to spray the alcohol in-between the rails, even if it touch the rails?
Yes, the alcohol will all evaporate cleanly. Of course, you don’t want to apply power while the glue is still wet.
I use a pipette to apply alcohol. It’s a lot less messy than spraying. Then I use an old Elmers Glue bottle filled with 3:1 water-to-white-glue mixture. The Elmers bottle is a convenient applicator. The glue should soak in and spread immediately. If it beads up, you need more alcohol.
And from your original post - ballast glue takes 24 hours to set up fully. It can take as long as 72 hours, particularly in a humid environment, or if you spray on water-dish soap mixture instead of alcohol. Alcohol significantly speeds up drying time, as it evaporates much faster than water.
I’m still in the building the benchwork/ buying cars and locos stage so the power issue will not be a problem.
In that case, I would hold off on the ballasting. As you lay track and start running trains, you may decide to modify your track plan. Or, you may find problems with the trackwork itself, necessitating repairs or re-work. Either of these issues becomes much more of a chore once you’ve ballasted the track.
I use foam roadbed over a pink foam base. I glue down the roadbed, but then I often just pin the track down with paper clips unbent into a U shape. I’ll run trains like that for months, making sure I like the position of the track and the trains like the way it works. Once the track is glued down, I go for another month or two, at least, before I finally ballast it.
I agree with Mr. B. Ballasting your tracks is among the very last things you should do in my opinion. Play with the 90% layout for a week or three, and when you know you have a fun and reliable track system, then you can do the finishing, including ballasting and painting the rails to look weathered.
I do owe you an apology; I misread about your choice of ballasting material. If you are using cinders, you might be further ahead to use a diliuted mixture of matte medium and water for the glue. Matte medium dries dull, not shiny, so the cinders will look grimy and dull…just the way they should. Mod Podge, available at Wal Mart for example in the crafts section, but also in hobby and craft stores such as Michael’s, comes in two varieties, glossy and matte. You want the matte.
Crandell
Yup. Some good advice coming in here. For myself, I use WS ballast (and I do use the fine scale product on an HO layout… the medium stuff, being about 6 scale inches in size, is much larger than the ballast I’m used to seeing on prototypes). I wet it with 35% alcohol (the 70% stuff you buy in the store, diluted 50:50 with filtered water) using a pipette, making sure I see the wetting agent oozing out of the bottom of the ballast. Then I wait about a minute, then apply matte medium solution. I make the solution by diluting one part matte medium with 4 parts water, adding two drops of dishwashing liquid per cup of solution, and letting it stand overnight. I then decant the solution from the sediment that settles out (this is talc, a dulling agent, and you don’t need it on your layout – it’s meant to help paints appear less glossy).
Good luck – when you finally get around to it.
I already know where I want to put my industries, 2 small cities, and one medium size city. The part I need help on is really finishing my two table constructions (been busy due to work, school). So far, I have one table finish that will serve my steel mill. I am using either plywood or strong particle board from Lowes (steel mill table) and the other two from menards.
Is it a good idea to use W/S tack glue to glue the foam boards to the tables?
I have not used the W/S tacky glue, but I have used a cheap, on-sale, acrylic latex caulking that you can get at hardware stores. Many of us here use it for that purpose. It must be spread fairly thinly so that you don’t have a large gob bending the foam overhead causing a change in grade for the trains.
BTW, we also use the caulking between our track ties and the roadbed…works great! Again, spread very thinly so that you can pry up the tracks if you need to move them for some reason.
Hello, I am fairly new to all of this as well. Trying to figure out how to do even the smallest things right the first time can be… daunting at best. I would HIGHLY recommend doing a Youtube search for “how to ballast HO track”, or something along those lines. AND, watch as many differnt videos as you can.
I used this one mostly as my tutorial when I ballasted my tracks, though I use Bachmann Easy Track. This guy doeas a great job, and a great job of easily explaining and illustrating what he’s doing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svu_nKj74qc&feature=related
This one is from Big Al, he’s… CARAZY… but got cray skillz… and gives great instruction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3whKYHfQGQ
Hope these help.
Chuck
Tacky glue is super strong because i had to remove it from my first train table (it was bowing) and it took me 20 mins because of the glue sticking to the foam and the table. I will take your experience advice and use the caulking. Thank you.
I am watching the big Al video right now and thank you.
Well, be warned that Al is who he is and holds nothing back. i do not advise watching his videos with kids ini the room, if you have any, unless you don’t mind them hearing strong language. When I watch his videos I use headphones. 
The guy is super talented. This forum and all the guys here are astonishinly talented and my head spins when I come in here and look around. Sometimes I think that there’s no way I could ever build anything close to anything I see on here, but I’ll never know if I don’t try. I am building mine for my kids… and me. A small 4x8 layout to get started. I am a visual kind of guy, so I do better with videos showing me how people are doing things rather than detailed text writings. I have a hard time visualizing that sometimes. BUT, the wealth of information here is priceless. Good luck.