I’m “fixin” to start laying ballast on the mains of my latest HO layout. The last time I put in ballast was 15 years ago. The results of that process back then came out pretty nice, and definitely stood the test of time.
My problem is, I don’t recall exactly how I did what I did. I’ve worked a couple of short strips but am not satisfied.
Rather than flounder around any more, and raise my BP, I thought you all might provide me with some clues or new methods. Oh, forgot to mention, I have painted (grey) cork roadbed, and code 100 flex track.
Soooo, like the subject heading asks, “W hat were the steps you took to lay track ballast”?
I would add getting the ballast wet before applying the glue mix, using a spary bottle with water and a few drops of dish soap. Once your ballast is down, use a spray bottle with a fine mist, let it “rain down” on the ballast at first until it gets damp, then you can spray it more directly. If it’s not damp before applying the glue mix, the glue mix may very well puddle on top and cause the ballast to move around and mess up your hard work getting it nice.
One thing I’ll add is that I like to allow the wetting agent to soak in for maybe 10-15 minutes before adding diluted glue. I find this helps to avoid over-saturating the ballast and displacing it.
I paint the slopped sides of the roadbed with paint that matches the ballast I am going to use, then apply some ballast directly to the wet paint. I use a paper bathroom cup creased with a spout to apply the ballast. Then I let that dry. What that does is makes the correct ballast shape but doesn’t let the ballast spread out too much from the roadbed but keeps it sort of confined to the track and roadbed area.
Next I apply ballast to the rest of the track and outside the rails to the roadbed slope with the paper cup and spread it out using a ½ inch wide camel hair brush. Then using a water mix of 50-50 of 70% alcohol and water, wet the ballast between the rails with an eye dropper, but not soaking it. A matt medium water mix of 50-50 is then applied with an eye dropper between the rails and let dry. This mix should be applied using enough to turn the ballast a milky white. This mix will also migrate outside the track and down the ballast slope into the scenery materials. (I apply a turf blend ground foam in wet brown paint beside the tracks before I ballast.)
I pour a long tin berm of beach sand between the rails, maybe 1/8" high. I do the same outside both rails, over the tie ends.
I use a long bristled 1" paint brush, held at and angle, bristles trailing, and pull the bristles from one end of the berm to the other, reverse angle, pull the bristles back again, several times until the ballast looks groomed. The trick is to only let the tips of the bristles meet the tops of the ties. Takes some focus and practice, but I can ballast three feet of rails inside two minutes this way.
Take a wooden dowel and tap the rail heads in several places. The grains left on the ties should move off.
Pre-wet the ballast by dribbling a drugstore concentration of isopropyl alcohol into the ballast mass, a little inside the rails, more of it ouside on what I call the apron. Soaking is not needed, just wetting. Use your instincts.
While the ballast is wet, I shake up a pre-mixed fluid of yellow carpenter glue with six parts of water (I add a few clean pebbles to the plastic squeeze bottle) and to which a couple drops of liquid dish soap have been added. Then, as I did with the alcohol, I dribble the glue mixture into the ballast, a little between the rails, more of it into the apron. Soaking is not needed. Use your instincts. You only want a hardened mass that will not allow your curves to do weird things, or your tangents to curiously follow the curves.
The two remaining tasks are to immediately wipe the rail heads with a damp clean cloth, turned frequently, and to weather both the rails and ballast as desired.
I am approaching this task as well. Cody Grivno has a way ot doing it as I recall. He does the centers of the tracks first, then using dilute white glue he paints the side of the roadbed and sprinkles ballast along that point. Then I think he adds more ballast along the bottom of the roadbed and uses a foam brush to shape it along the sides. I think he wets it down with the alcohol/water mix and uses dilute matte medium to secure it.
I have watched him and it seems quite labor intensive but the finished product looks great. Dave Frary just pours his along the track, smoothes it out and uses the same adhesive method I think. His looks different from Cody’s - it’s more spread out - and doesn’t seem to require the amount of labor. I will try both and whatever seems to work the quickest is the one I will probably use.
The part that I have yet to “master” is the margins of the ballast. I realize that it is not perfectly even along the prototype, but mine seems to uneven since I have not perfected a way to contain it when I pour it,
What do others do to attain even margins of the ballast?
Try doing the shoulders first. Paint the edges with full strength adhesive keeping the margins straight and then sprinkle ballast onto the wet adhesive. Let that dry thoroughly ( overnight or so) and then vacuum up the loose material. You can then add a finish layer of ballast, groom with a sponge brush, wet with isopropyl alcohol and dribble on diluted adhesive. The track center can then be ballasted. I have found it much easier to get neat margins this way.
Rich, I draw a line where I want the edge of the ballast to be. Then brush on straight white glue from the edge of the roadbed to the line. Add the ballast to it, then using a medicine dropper (the larger ones), I soak it with either 70% alcohol or wet water. After that has dried, I ballast the rest of the track. The dried ballast on the sides will also add some “tooth” to the slope so the next application won’t slide down the sides. To ballast the track itself, I use those translucent condiment bottles (like the ones they use at those greasy spoon burger joints), that you can buy at Walmart for less than a dollar each. Also, I found that the diluted white glue can separate after sitting on the shelf for a while. When I mix up the diluted glue mixture (50:50 usually), I drop a large fishing weight into the bottle. When I’m ready to use it, I shake the bottle. The weight acts like the BB in a rattle can.
I use a spoon to carefully add ballast along the edge, not necessarily relying on brushing to get anything into place there. I also will brush excess away at times, and add more of the surrounding scenery material back against the ballast. I’m modeling well into the machine maintenance era, so ballast edges aren’t as even as they would be for earlier periods.
Note the dirt along the tracks above. If I include a base like that before ballasting, I can “clean up” the ballast edge somewhat by applying some more dirt as needed. As shown in the photo, ballast also creeps into the dirt, so mixing the two yields a realiststic overlap.
