Well, a large section of track has been painted and is now ready for ballasting. Since my model railroad depicts the mining railroads of Nevada (T&T, LV&T, BG RR), I am using mine tailings from Rhyolite as ballast as they just used dirt as ballast on all of these roads.
However, I find it tedious work and after the glue dried, some of it always ends up on the railhead and must be cleaned off. It always takes a while before trains run like they did before ballasting no matter how careful I am. Not looking forward to doing it! - Nevin
Put a thin coat of light oil on the rails first. Also use a foam brush to smooth out the ballast. The bristle brushes flick grains of ballast everywhere. use a 1" brush & cut it to just fit inside the rails. Jerry
What? It’s easy. Lay ties, sand tops, stain ties, ballast, lay rails. No ballast on top of rail. All kidding aside. Yes it is a pain in the behind sometimes. I learned early not to put too much ballast down all at once and try spreading it. For between the rails I use a plastic spoon and slowly tilt it as it bumps along the ties. Then I use the old index finger and run it over the trail of ballast. The sides I do in 2 stages. The first is to run a bead of white glue along the side of the road bed and do the spoon/ ballast bumping into the glue. Then up to the sides of the ties. Remember it is easier to add than subtract ballast.
Done properly, ballasting can be an easy and relaxing task, and it’s pretty hard to beat the “bang for your modelling buck”. Here’s the method which I use.
Yes, ballasting track is not my most favorite thing in this hobby. Out of all the techniques the one i’ve found that works the best for this tedious task is PATIENCE. I spread the ballast and lay it down with a 1" brush, then fill an old elmer’s glue bottle with 70% alcohol and another with 40% white glue / 60% water with 2 drops of liquid dishwashing soap added to the mix. I then drizzle the alcohol over a section of the ballast followed with the white glue. After it dries, i’ll take a hobby knife and pick off the ballast that sticks to the rails followed with a good vacuuming. I then paint the rails and the ties with a 00 brush using floquil’s rail brown on the rails and the ties with floquil’s railroad tie brown with a bit of grimy black in the mix and a railroad tie brown with some gray in the mix to add contrast to the ties. My final step is to mix up some dilute grimy black and airbrush it down the center of the ties to add oil and grease stains and then mix some tan colored paint and airbrush an edge where the end of the ballast meets the ground on the outside rails. The whole time PATIENCE is being used to get through this task…chuck
I use a plastic spoon to apply ballast. I have no problems spreading it with a 1" wide paint brush. One thing I really found handy was to lightly tap the rails with the brush handle. This aids in getting those pesky pieces of ballast out of the rail web. To ballast the sides, I too brush on straight white glue for the initial application. Once that has dried, I add more and affix it in the normal manner; wet water/alcohol and diluted white glue.
Once I glued my Kato Unitrack into final position with Liquid Nails (glued directly to the pink insulation foam sheets–you cannot nail into them because the nails will work loose) and got the ground foam, etc. on the layout, the Kato joints became less obvious.
Also, Kato offers separate matching ballast which can be used for minor touchups (or to cover the joints).
It took me about an hour to layout my entire mainline (I drew the plans in cadd), plus a couple hours to get the passing sidings fitting right by trial and error.
I’ll never cut rails or mess with the infernal cork roadbed again!
If you ever meet somebody who says he LIKES ballasting track, ask him which railroad he works for. If it isn’t 1:1 scale, contact the local funny farm and ask if they’ve mislaid a patient.
If Kato ever manufactures nice, smooth horizontal and vertical easement curves, then MAYBE I’ll consider Unitrak - but probably not. They don’t manufacture some of my off-the-wall curve radii, and nobody will ever produce commercial specialwork as good as the kind I assemble on wooden ties with raw rail, spikes and solder.
Gluing track of any kind with Liquid Nails is an exercise in faith. I’ve built several (dozen) layouts, and never a one but the track plan got modified some time after tracklaying started. How do you repair the bomb craters in the foam? Or do you think your trackplan is lead-anchored in solid granite?
Don’t know how big your layout is, but if you can afford Unitrak either it’s of modest size or you’re independently wealthy. Since I’m filling a double garage on a frayed-shoestring budget…
As it happens, I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of cork roadbed. That’s why
Where is it written that you don´t have to put in a lot of sweat to get a nice looking layout? Ballasting track is surely a tedious and time consuming work, but you will be rewarded by the looks of it - there is just no short-cut for that!
Hardly anybody pays attention to all the lineside details around the track. There is so much more than just laying track, painting it, weathering the rails and ballasting - there are cable ducts, sign post, switch motors and you know what. Including these details makes a lot of a difference - it turns a good layout into an excellent one. A few years ago, MR ran a series of articles on how to detail your track - worth looking at!
A sign of American culture, want it cheap, easy, and perfect, ie. I am not a fan of plastic roadbed with track mounted. Have ballasted my track both flex and handlaid track since 1959, and while I would rather do something like take a nap, I rather enjoy doing it.
The one thing that’s often forgotten is that NOT ballasting a railroad is always an option. I mean, it is YOUR layout after all. My last layout (N scale) isn’t ballasted, or rather it’s faux ballasted, meaning it’s done with paint over foam roadbed with “ballast” around the edges. I kinda like the way it looks and certainly makes “fixing” and modifications easier.
I actually don’t mind ballasting track (except around turnouts) and what I described may not work as well with larger scales, but I kinda like it. Oddly enough, when I show pictures and tell people it isn’t ballasted, they say “then what’s that”? Just roadbed. It’s all about the illusion and what YOU want.
