fools guide to ballasting?

[saddler]

anyone know to a fools guide to ballasting? not looking forward to doing the points at all, also what grade of ballast would best suit my peco setrack? am going for a grimey brown industrial look so will probably mix a few colours

[scotsoft]

There are a few videos on You Tube showing methods of ballasting, you may benefit if you have a look at a few and see if there are any you might feel happy doing.

cheers John.

[spurno]

hi Saddler.
i've recently finished doing mine and i followed a video off of youtube.although it was a bit of a pain i didn't find it too difficult.as you are aware the points are the worst bit but what i did was to use neat pva in between the sleepers up to just before the pivot.don't worry about the tie bar area,it's not worth the hassle.firm it down with your finger and work the points back and forth and leave.go back an hour later and work the points again.if they are still free it will probably be ok to leave them but you can check as often as you like.for all track other than points i did it the traditional way of laying ballast,pre soaking with water from a spray bottle and then using a dropper with a 60/40 mix of water/pva plus a drop of washing up liquid.good luck,it's easier than you think.

ps.if like me your droppers go through the baseboard in the centre of the track just plug the holes with a bit of blu tack.i lost a bit of ballast before i realised.works a treat.

[Sprintex]

With regard to grade of ballast I found Woodland Scenics Fine to be the right scale size granules, never known anyone to have discolouration problems with it either 

I did it the traditional way of laying ballast, pre soaking with water from a spray bottle and then using a dropper with a 60/40 mix of water/pva plus a drop of washing up liquid.

That's pretty much it as Spurno says. Lay your ballast and use a small brush, stick or fingers to get it all where you want it. Pre soak with plain water using something with a VERY fine mist spray, this is ideal:-

http://www.boots.com/en/Boots-Travel-Spray-Bottle-50ml_1228699/

Gives a really fine mist that doesn't disturb ballast, unlike the trigger bottles you get household cleaners in that will blast your ballast to kingdom come!

Then dribble the above water/PVA/WUL mixture over the damp ballast with a large pipette until well soaked - it WILL look a mess and you will wonder what on earth you've done, but have faith Also as said above keep it away from the point tiebar, and just to make sure keep moving the point back and forth every so often for at least the first couple of hours drying time. Then leave the whole thing alone for 48 hours to dry thoroughly. When dry, go along the inside of the rails with a small screwdriver just to ensure no grains have floated and stuck to the rails otherwise you'll get derailments 


Paul

[dch05]

If you want another fool's guide to ballasting, here's what I used in "OO" gauge for years and intend trying in "N" soon:
1  ensure track is tightly pinned to baseboard without holes to gobble up ballast.
2  obtain appropriate proprietary ballast
3  rinse to remove dust and too-fine particles and dry it
4  apply to track with paper "V" and get as close as you can to moving point parts
5  thump baseboard to help ballast settle
6  DO NOT apply glue OR water!
7  keep layout covered with Perspex or light material to reduce future dust
8  future alterations to track formation can be made so easily and cheaply by just vacuuming up the affected area, fiddle with the layout and relaying ballast afterwards.
9  obviously not for portable layouts!!!

There, devised by a mean, lazy modeller!

[Dock Shunter]

I'm sorry....and i don't mean to sound rude but your method is a recipe for disaster......
It only takes one or two grains of ballast to jam the mechanism of an N Gauge locomotive.
I think i would spend more time checking for stray grains of ballast than running trains if it was left loose.
How would you be able to do any other work on the layout without disturbing the ballast,or would ballasting be the last job that you do?
I see more problems with this method that far outweigh any positives.
I really would think carefully before you decide to do it this way......

[longbridge]

This fool has ballasted several layouts over the years but one thing I learned back in the 1990s was ballast N Gauge track very lightly and only ballast the non moving parts of points, I use blu tac to dam the points blades to make sure no PVA gets anywhere near them.

There is nothing worse than placing to much ballast in between the rails, been there done that and its one heck of a job to remove it when the ballast is dry, locos sound as though they are running over Corn Flakes 

Having said that ballasting can be fun when it goes the way you want it to, my next job on my new layout is ballasting 

[dch05]

I'm sorry....and i don't mean to sound rude but your method is a recipe for disaster......
It only takes one or two grains of ballast to jam the mechanism of an N Gauge locomotive.
I think i would spend more time checking for stray grains of ballast than running trains if it was left loose.
How would you be able to do any other work on the layout without disturbing the ballast,or would ballasting be the last job that you do?
I see more problems with this method that far outweigh any positives.
I really would think carefully before you decide to do it this way......

* Yes, I did leave ballasting until all structural work was done.
* I never had "OO" problems with ballast in mechanisms, but agree that "N" will be a different story.
* I'm doing a trial stretch very soon!