Can you spray "Scenic Cement" or diluted PVA with an airbrush?

[chrism]

I'm considering using some weird stuff called "Chinchilla Dust" (per the good counsel of a member on here - sorry, I can't remember who it was) for the grungy grubby TMD mud/ballast/dirt that makes up the surface of a TMD/goods yard. The stuff is super-fine, and I can't see any way of fixing it without blowing it all over the room with a spray bottle or leaving it looking like a lunar landscape if I use a dropper.

Dunno about the "good counsel" bit but I'm probably the most recent person to have used, or admitted to using, chinchilla dust, which i used on Broughton.

For the areas between the tracks I built up the ground with card, painted that with dilute PVA and applied the dust like a scenic scatter.

Once I was happy with that, I then applied the dust between the rails & sleepers and between the outer rails and the edges of the already done "flat" areas as I do normally for ballasting - pour on dry, shuffling it around with a brush and my fingers and pressing it  down before giving it a light spray with water from a hand pumped garden spray bottle and adding the usual dilute PVA with an eye dropper.

I bevelled the edges of the card infills because in my experiments I found that made it easier to get a reasonable blend between the flat infill areas and the loose ballasted areas with less tendency to get a visible straight join.

I don't recall any problems with the stuff either blowing away or forming holes/depressions. I did take care to dribble the PVA solution down the sides of the rails rather than dropping it directly onto the ballast since I'm sure that the latter would have given my the aforementioned lunar landscape effect.

The chinchilla dust I bought is rather a pale cream colour so once it was dry I went over it all with a dilute mix of grey and brown emulsion to give it the colour I wanted.

The reason I decided to try the dust was to try and get a more accurate effect compared to photos of the real Broughton - where the ballast surface appeared to be rather fine, laid right up above the sleepers to the bottom of the rails and continuing at the same level all across the station and yard. The Gaugemaster granite ballast that I'd used on the other stations was too coarse to achieve that effect so I thought I'd try the chinchilla dust since I'd seen it mentioned somewhere, both on these forums and elsewhere.

[LASteve]

Suppose if I was fussy I could use salon quality stuff 

I just checked recent Amazon orders. Jill uses "Nexus Comb-Thru Natural Hold Design and Finishing Mist". I'll purloin her next delivery and see how it works on ballast. It's effective on her hair You might have hit on the perfect solution.

[Bealman]

 

[chrism]

At least no-one's mentioned Brylcreem - oh dear, someone just has 

[LASteve]

Dunno about the "good counsel" bit but I'm probably the most recent person to have used, or admitted to using, chinchilla dust, which i used on Broughton.

Hi @chrism - thanks for chiming in, yes, it was your post/thread that got me thinking about using the chinchilla dust - the effect you got at Broughton was fantastic and got me thinking when I saw the photos from Finsbury Park that's what I want to recreate.

The dust seemed so fine that I couldn't imagine being able to fix it without blowing it everywhere, but going from your experience I just need to be careful. Thanks!

[ntpntpntp]

@LASteve   WS Fine Light Grey B1374. Used it since the 90s.  I prefer a light base colour which I can weather and darken to suit the location.




Personally I think if you go too fine it starts to look like mud, it needs to retain a bit of stone texture even if technically it is a little over-scale.

[LASteve]

@LASteve   WS Fine Light Grey B1374. Used it since the 90s.  I prefer a light base colour which I can weather and darken to suit the location.

Perfect. I put one of my figures next to the ballast that I'd used and it looked like they were staggering off with a rock, not a pebble

[Bealman]

Yeah, we seem to have drifted off topic a bit.

Basically you want fine filthy stuff for a MPD. how about fine beach sand coloured appropriately?

When I started my layout, I bought a local product, which probably suits your needs, but just as probably - more so - impossible to get!

[emjaybee]

Blimey, this thread got busy fast!

I've got some perfect little atomiser spray bottles that I got from APC Pure, they have a really fine mist, but obviously that's in this country not the U.S. So they are out there.

[Bealman]

Very close up picture of a cracked solder joint, but at the same time shows the stuff I was talking about. Dunno if it was local sand or what, but it came in dirty black!

[springwood]

.. using dilute PVA and a pipette and letting it soak in from the edge rather than dropping from above.  I was happy with the result.

Yes, agree with ntp, that's the safe sure way of doing it - and indeed the way I did it did it and it worked fine. I used a small, fine spray bottle to mist (from a height) the water (with drop of washing up liquid in) over the dry ballast to do that initial soak. More recently, I have used a 3 (water):1 (PVA) solution from a spray bottle to 'seal' the grass, scatter, bushes etc on the scenic parts of the layout.

[lil chris]

@LASteve The alternative to spraying with glue why not mix with Delux Materials Ballast Magic instead, It is a powder glue, it is meant for using with ballast but I can not see why you could not use it with the chinchilla dust. You just give a light spray with water after, I would not put glue through your airbrush I would think that is asking for trouble.

[LASteve]

Thanks, everyone for the input.

@lil chris - I've read about the "Ballast Magic", maybe it's time to give it a try, but the problem remains with the water spray, whether it's PVA/water or plain water, getting the finest spray is still the kicker.

@emjaybee - they must be out there somewhere, it's a question of where! Google is about to get busy with "atomizer USA" searches.

@bealman - Good idea - I'll trot over to the nearest volcano and pick up some scatter. It looks the part!

@springwood - interesting proportions - I've used 50:50 up until now, but if a 25:75 ratio works, that tempts me more into the airbrush experiment. Something @Bealman said about unclogging a spray bottle got the wheels turning too - what if I mixed near-boiling water and PVA and sprayed that? It would be like spraying hot tarmac onto pavement - when it cools it sets, but try spraying cold tar and you won't get very far. I know the chemistry is different, but something tells me hot PVA is less likely to be sticky than cold.

I'll report back with results. 

[themadhippy]

Delux Materials Ballast Magic instead, It is a powder glue

would cascamite work?

[chrism]

@bealman - Good idea - I'll trot over to the nearest volcano and pick up some scatter. It looks the part!

Apart from the colour, that's what chincilla dust is - minced up pumice. The chinchillas need it for bathing because it's abrasive it removes all the muck from their fur. They can't bathe in water because they have so much fur - if it got waterlogged they probably wouldn't be able to move.

A friend had chinchillas once and often let them out to have a run around the house. The only way to catch one is the grab its tail as it darts past - the fur is so thick and long that the body is less than 1/3 of the thickness of the animal so that, by the time you've got your hands around them, they're gone before you can get a grip on the body.

Delux Materials Ballast Magic instead, It is a powder glue

would cascamite work?

Should do, and is undoubtedly cheaper than a branded product - which could well be the same stuff repackaged. I used it years ago on a OO layout and it worked well - more solid when set than PVA glued ballast so it does transmit noise more and more of a pain to remove if that's even necessary.