Some months ago I asked this forum about what material to use for beach sand and was told that some people use grout. WELL!! My trip to Lowes was very revealing.
I found a product called Spectra Lock Part C made by a company called Laticrete. It is made of very fine crystalline silica and comes in 1 pound containers which look like 1 qt. paper milk cartons. The product comes in more than a dozen different colors and is made to be mixed with a liquid called Part A&B to produce a stain proof colored tile grout. I don’t use part A&B.
I have used the following colors: #1223 Antique White for beach sand. #1230 Sand Beige for a darker color sand.
A mixture of #1242 Platinim and #1245 Raven produces the familar dirty gray color found in many railroad yards.
I spread the substance on the ground by either painting a base ground color and then sprinkling it over the top, or by spreading it evenly in the yard, wetting it with a 50-50 water/alcohol mixture and then cementing with a 50-50 mixture of water and white glue. It dries in 24 hours.
If anybody can tell me how to insert a picture in this medium, I’ll be glad to post a couple of shots of my results.
You need to have a host site to upload pics from your computer. I use Railimages. It’s very easy to work with and it’s free, so the price is right. Here’s a link;
I use photobucket for my pictures. http://www.photobucket.com It is free and easy to use. It even gives you the links to cut and paste in the proper formats for the boards, websites or links.
I used the Antique white for ballast at the sand mine. But be careful and don’t get too much down. It’s silica and when glued it’s very difficult to remove. Even my dremel with a cutting tool had problems.
I don’t think it would be a problem to use the right color (there are lots of them) on the mainline.
