How is the Life Like ballast, it’s a lot cheaper the WS and Walthers have it on sale. Does it look good? Have anyone tried it? I want a grayish ballast.
Magnus
It might be ok, but I would stick with the industry standard; Walthers’ balast.
David B
I searched there website looking for ballast and Walther’s as manufacturer but couldn’t find any?
Do you have a link or an item number?
Magnus
I’ve used just about every kind of ballast out there, WS ballast tends to be a little more uniform than LL ballast but both have worked just fine for me. If you can find the LL ballast in a size and color that suits you, go for it.
Magnus, if you can find clean fine sand in the colour(s) you want, use it instead of the WS ballast. I have used both, and real sand beats the crushed walnut shells (or whatever it is they use) that WS will sell you. You may need to go to a gravel pit and wash a supply of sand yourself (a good idea anyway), or find a place that sells aquaria because they will have filter sand.
The sand is much more dense than the shell particles, and it will tend to stay in the groomed shape you place it in before you glue it.
I am using Arizona Rock & Mineral ballast. It is all real rock and looks great. They have several different colors, prototypical no less if that is important to you. I can’t speak to any other kind of ballast since I have not used it. I don’t know, however, how available it is. Even here in Arizona, the only store that I have found that carries it is An Affair Wtih Trains. The less specialized hobby stores don’t carry it although they will special order. You can also order directly from Arizona Rock at http://www.rrscenery.com.
That is an excellent idea. My village have it’s own sandpit. Very fine grains of sand. I will See how it looks. When I think about it, my house is actually place in a old sandpit. I will take a look and I will also look in the aquarium store. They do have a large variety of gravels. I agree that the WS ballast have a tendency to “run” away on me.
Magnus
I used LL ballast on my first two layouts and found that it is not even close to scale as is the woodland scenics ballast. I’ll still use it, but only as a cut / fill material. it’s just too large for track ballast unless it’s O scale or better…chuck
I’m curious about that too. I’ve never seen Walthers ballast and it’s not listed on their web site. (that I can find)
I don’t think you want to use “cheap” ballast. It can ruin the look of your layout. LL doesn’t look very scale. Highball Products also makes some nice stuff.
I have used WS so far so I will probably continue with that unless selectors tip pays off. I just saw how cheap LL stuff was and wondered how big a difference there was. I did order some coal though since I want to make some big coal dumps.
Magnus
I think LL is a little large…Campbell use to make a very good HO ballast but I don’t know if it is still around…Cox 47
I found a bag of aquarium sand that I liked but I wasn’t sure about the size, What size is the grains on a typical HO layout?
Magnus
Ideally, 1mm, somewhat smaller if possible. Once you get into 1.5mm range, that is the equivalent of a man’s fist, much larger than ballast size.
If that sand isn’t suitable, Magnus, ask them if they have filtering sand, or sand for a filtration system for aquaria. It would/should be finer.