Ballasting

royale

royale

G scale and driving my Royale Sabre kit car
Country flag
A friend of mine is ballasting his outdoor track and wants to use an outdoor PVA glue to fix it in place onto a concrete base. Would a 50/50 water/PVA mix be the best or would a different mixture of the two work better? I've suggested he also use a few drops of washing up liquid to help the mixture flow more easily.
 
I've used a 1/3 : 2/3 mixture of glue and water (with the washing up liquid as you suggest) with good success. Just as long as it's exterior PVA.
 
I would agree with Martino. 50/50 might be a bit too thick and pool rather than flow leaving permanent puddles.
 
Look at my thread, recent posts have been all about Ballasting. 50/50 Waterproof External Grade PVA with Water and a bit of Washing Up Liquid. But before that give a good Wetting with Water mixed with a good dose of Washing Up Liquid. Plus better on a Hot Sunny Day to help the Drying, unfortunately at the moment not the best time in UK for Ballasting. But if you hot a good sunny day in your neck of the woods, well go for it.
JonD
 
And what ballast do people use? I have picked up some 3mm to dust from the quarry but it's more dust than 3mm and doesn't really give the ballast effect I'm after.
Anything larger than 3mm makes it look as if the track is ballasted with boulders.
Aquarium grit is too rounded.
At the moment my only option is to try and wash the dust out of the quarry material.
Any other suggestions?
 
I use 5mm Alpine Cumbrian Green from Borderstone. See page 8...

http://www.aggregate.com/documents/brochures/garden-landscaping-brochure-borderstone-2012.pdf
 
I've used 5mm sharp shingle from a local quarry. It's laid loose with no mortar.

It is over scale, but the compromises are that it doesn't get trapped in the treads of shoes and get dragged into the house, and most animals tend to find it too heavy to move around. Cats and birds will dig about in the smaller stuff? And the wind doesn't blow it around either.

If you do use small (less than 3mm) gravel, you may have to secure it with a glue/mortar mix to stop it moving....
 
I used the crusher dust and sieved the fines out of it. Mixed the dry ballast with some dry cement and spread it, you can use a paint brush to help sweep it where you want it. Then using a spray bottle filled with water to which a FEW drops of detergent have been added spray the ballast enough to just wash any dry cement of the face of the ballast. Let it cure. The advantages are that the ballast remains porous yet well stuck together and can easily excavated if needed....
 
I have previously used Westland Horticultural Grit - pics below.....

DSCF4120.JPG

DSCF5930.JPG

Westland`s prduct is random sized but has a nice colour variation. I can no longer obtain it over here as the garden centre has changed to an Irish supplier and their grit is one uniform colour as it is crushed stone. It is finer however!

 
I use J Arthur Bower`s Coarse Grit, which is usually stocked by Wyevale Garden Centres and is a pleasing grey with a hint of pink and looks OK when both wet and dry - the right sort of colour for NE Spain, anyway!.  Being sold as grit rather than chippings, it has a good variation in size too.  Update - just bought some more to finish my new station and it has been renamed `Horticultural Grit` in a purple rather than red bag, but it is the same stuff inside.  Just costs another £1 a bag for the fancier packaging!.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0332 (Small).JPG
    IMG_0332 (Small).JPG
    56.6 KB · Views: 58
I use a mixture of 3-5mm granite and MOT from Derbyshire Aggregates. The benefit of the MOT (5mm down to very fine particles) is that when sprayed with water it sets almost like cement and sp hplds your track in place, but can easily be broken up and used again and again.
 
royale said:
I use a mixture of 3-5mm granite and MOT from Derbyshire Aggregates. The benefit of the MOT (5mm down to very fine particles) is that when sprayed with water it sets almost like cement and sp hplds your track in place, but can easily be broken up and used again and again.
Click to expand...
Absolutely agree about the MOT chippings - I get them from the local builders merchant for landscaping jobs such as patio edging (good value) and the stuff is especially good on my railway for doing trackside areas such as embankments, as the colour is slightly more reddy-brown and when laid wet, it can be 'moulded' to cover sloped areas yet sets hard and so defies gravity thereafter.
 
Maybe Ministry of Transport? When I used to buy base material for roads, it was DoT (Department of Transport spec.).
 
I would advise you to use crushed stone rather gravel and mix in a little cement rather than glue. The sharps edged stone with it's own dust will stick well with a 6:1 or even weaker mix. It will also look more realistic.
 
MOT1 has big bits in it as well - like over an inch across. Confused???
 
For Stockers - The MOT from Derbyshire Aggregates does not contain anything larger than 5mm, at least the sample shown to me didn't. However, when I first was building my railway, I got 1 ton bags of MOT from my local builders' yard and this did contain larger rocks, but this was OK. I sieved the MOT through a coarse sieve and the result through a finer sieve and then that through an even finer sieve. The large stones then were used as a base/drainage layer, the second lot spread over this, then laid the track and did the final ballasting the the last finer lot and sprayed with water. This may sound a bit laborious but it was actually done quite quickly. My Peco track has been down now about eight years with virtually no movement and yes, I can walk on it. Have to do a bit of topping up once or twice a year. Hope that helps.
 
MoT1 is what farmers would call "Quarry Bottoms" and used for cart tracks. Crusher Run is another term.

Whatever the nomenclature, it's a sub base material (unless your a farmer in the Yorkshire Dales - then it's bottom, middle and top) which binds when rolled.
 
[quote author=funandtrains link=topic=299489.msg326318#msg326318 date=1409853412]
I would advise you to use crushed stone rather gravel and mix in a little cement rather than glue. The sharps edged stone with its own dust will stick well with a 6:1 or even weaker mix. It will also look more realistic.
[/quote]
I suppose it depends on what type of ballast you`re trying to represent. For my 1920s-30s light NG railway look, I wanted something which more or less buried the sleepers and yet gave some sort of semblance of chippings. I opted for horticultural/potting grit as has been mentioned, but whereas I`ve previously used cement over which I then dribbled PVA, I`ve recently been trying flexible tile adhesive. My main reason was that I had best part of a bag left over after relaying floor tiles and when using it, I`d noticed it smelled a bit PVA-like, so I suspect it has some sort of dried PVA additive already included. It also includes very fine sand which seems to help with adhesion. However, if you`re wanting the neat chippings effect, then this won`t be for you - but I`m happy.

I brush the mix (roughly 50/50 grit and tile cement) into place dry
1-IMG_7430.JPG

and then add water (with a drop of washing-up liquid) from a watering can
1-IMG_7433.JPG

I`ve used it for my ground-based sections
1-IMG_7517.JPG

and also on the wooden raised sections and so far, it seems to be staying in place well.
1-IMG_7519.JPG

You can buy the tile cement in different colours - mine happened to be grey as that was what was needed in the house - but I have tried adding powdered cement dyes to the mix with varying success
1-IMG_7449.JPG

As I said, this approach is not to everyone`s taste but it suits my sort of railway as it seems to eventually attract moss growth which gives the track a slightly overgrown and poorly maintained look, which is just right for the interwar depression period I`m modelling.

Rik
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom