Hello
I’m in the track laying process of part of my layout. Previously I’ve painted the roadbed (in this case, cork) a primer grey color in hopes that any poor ballasting it wouldn’t show through. Here’s my question- is this completely necessary, and do you do it on your layout?
I haven’t done it up to now but I will in the future especially under turnouts where the ballast will be thinner and hand placed. The paint color should closely match the ballast color, in my case, a reddish brown.
I’ve never done it. When I ballast my track all of the cork is covered and no cork is exposed.
Wouldn’t you want to seal the cork in any case irrespective of the color issue?
Keith
I have used a textured paint under turnouts as eaglescout has suggested. Since I haven’t finished my ballasting, can’t tell just how good it will be, but not having to completely ballast around the switches should make life easier. I have thought of painting all the cork in the future, but will wait until I have ballasted what I have done before I make the decision.
Good luck,
Richard
I use WS foam roadbed, which is a dark gray in color. Any spots of dark gray showing through fall into one of two categories:
Very minor hole, looks like a shadow to the naked eye. No issues.
Large hole, which means I did a crappy job of ballasting. It gets fixed immediately. Often holes are created when ballast floats or is washed away while cementing it. I learned to avoid this problem by a simple process: groom the ballast dry with a soft brush (between the rails) and a foam applicator (outside shoulders), wet it with 35% isopropyl alcohol (the kind you buy in a store diluted 50%) and applied with a pipette, dribbling this wetting agent only between the rails until the shoulders are at least damp, then applying diluted (1:4) matte medium in the same manner.