Notes on ballasting

[Jeff de La Beaujardiere]

I have greatly appreciated the useful suggestions
about ballasting given recently in the group, and
would like to add two of my own which I have tried
as I ballast my rails [HO] for the first time.

I followed this group's advice to:
- Paint the rails first. I masked the moving
parts of turnouts and, working a section at
a time, used a spray can of Light Earth to
paint the rails, ties and roadbed gently
from the viewing direction (ignoring the
unseen back on my shelf layout). I
immediately used blocks of old roadbed
to wipe off the tops of the rails. Besides
giving a realistic shiny top/rusty side
look, the paint hid my blobs of solder
and ends of wire, and gave a more uniform
appearance to the toylike metal rail on
black tie on brown roadbed on painted foam.
- Use a foam rubber block that fits between
the ties to spread the ballast. It
provides better control than a brush. See
the Rensselaer Model Railroad Society photo at

http://www.union.rpi.edu/railroad/images/scenery-bldg/foam-ballast-applicator.jpg
- Use rubbing alcohol instead of water+detergent
to wet the ballast. It works perfectly and
can be dribbled on with an eyedropper instead
of sprayed, which is messy and sometimes pits
the ballast with high-speed streams.
- Flow on a glue+water mixture with an eyedropper
and let dry 24 hours.

My two additions were:
- Add a drop of water-based black paint to
the glue+water. I found that my glue
[Woodland Scenics Cement; next time I'll
mix my own] left a whitish residue in
places. Blackening it just a touch got
rid of that.
- Just after the glue is on and the ballast
looks just right, I sprinkled on a bit
of vegetation [Woodland Scenics dark green
"weeds"] using an empty spice jar with
shaker top. It yielded a slightly
overgrown look to the industrial spur.

After doing this first section, I have gone
from dreading the thought of painting and
ballasting to being a complete convert.

Cheers,
Jeff DLB

[George Downer]

I like the idea of coloring Woodland Scenics glue. I've run into the same
problem gluing ground foam with their glue.
George

"Jeff de La Beaujardiere" <jef...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:396C52...@erols.com...

[Geotech]

Thanks for the useful information; I will ballasting my layout [N] for the
first time in about a week.

Happy Modeling
Mark