Help! My Ballasting is a mess!

The foam underlay where the track sits "in" the underlay is not meant to be ballasted. - that is why it is grey, it is supposed to look like ballast already.

What you have done with the chipping and PVA/water solution is essentially correct but only if the track is laid straight onto the baseboard or thin cork underlay.

hoover up the chippings (scraping them loose without damaging the foam as much as you can. The either leave the foam as-is or put the track onto the board or cork and then do the ballasting - even then, it is quite tricky to get the knack and I would suggest you only do about 6-12 inches at a time - taking care not to "clog" crossings and pointwork - it is easy to do. Also, if you have more than one mainline, don't be tempted to do a bit of each... stick to one line and get that done first. This allows you to still play and when you get the first bit done, and it looks good, the sense of achievement takes a lot of beating :o)

above all, don't be disheartened, try again and have fun - you can still run trains on unballasted track so when you get fed up of doing a bit, run a few on a different section.

Here's the main problem - you waited, then applied the glue. Important step missed.

After shaping the ballast to your satisfaction, grab a mist bottle - prob about 60p at your local supermarket. Or, if Mum's not looking, raid her cleaning supplies. Fill it with water, then add a little squirt of dishwashing liquid. This is a wetting agent. From a height, with the mist bottle on fine spray, mist the ballast until wet. Then use the eyedropper to apply the glue. Prob best to use a 50/50 mix of PVA and water, but its a minor quibble.

When the glue is applied now, it should soak straight into the ballast. If you want to keep the glue/ballast mix away from the points, you can cover over with masking tape before spraying/gluing. The bond around the points will be weaker and easier to remove the ballast, or you can hack away until they move freely. Whichever works for you.

All the best and good luck (hang in there!)

Steve Newcastle NSW Aust

Thanks guys. Uncle wobbly- Ive taken some your advice and removed the whole lot from the board. Going back to the drawing board, I've stocked up on some 4mm Cork tiles which we intend to "mis-use" as track underlay.

An idea occured to me - to lay the cork underlay (not stick down) then to cut out the track shape from a ballast landscape-on-a-roll of paper-stuff (whatever the proper name for that is!). Then I thought we could lay that over the underlay, with the edges glued to the board, then the track on top, and just fill in between the sleepers here and there with sprinkled-on ballast for effect. My thoughts were that it would be quicker, easier, less messy and less hassle around points etc. It might also reduce noise due to the underlay and track not being directly adhered to the board in any way.

But would it look any good? Is this a crazy idea? If so, why?

Continuing friendly advice for a newbie would be appreciated!

Another idea I saw is to use a double-sided sticky foam strip, which sticks to the board and the track then sticks to that and ballast is pressed home - you can get white foam strip from DIY stores, (like "sticky fixers" but on a roll) but the white tends to show through in the bald bits - I think the stuff for modellers is grey or brown which is much better but has a price to match! Another idea I heard of but have never seen - you can get (again, DIY store) a mastic (sort of synthetic putty type filler) strip between two foils strips, the foil is peeld off and the mastic pressed to the board, the top strip is peeled away and the track is pressed into it. Again ballast is pressed home and the mastic dries (dunno how long). I think this stuff is used in the plumbing or window replacement trade. It is grey which makes for better modelling use. Never seen this done though, the story came to me as "a mate of a mate". Maybe one day I'll hunt some down and just do a test on a spare bit of chipboard or sunnik.

My own layout has been a gargantuun struggle - the number of times I have restarted. In the end I went for corrugated card (brown boxes) vut to width (sleepers plus a bit) to give the shoulder to the ballast, flattened a bit so it wasn't so proud and then the track pinned to the board through it. Ballast was then applied in the traditional manner. You have to be careful not to saturate the card coz it will swell, but the overall effect was surprisingly good. The sound deadened effects are OK but not the quietest I have ever heard.

What you could do it to get an off-cut of chipboard and a few lengths of track and just experiment with different methods until you find what works for you and which looks the best. This is how I discovered the brown-box method for which I took a lot of stick at the time, but later served up large portions of humble pie to friends... secret is to not soak it - mist the whole thing with PVA & Water & a drop of squeezy so it forms a "crust" The track being pinned to it makes it all nice & even.

The foam ballast gives a reasonable effect in a very short space of time but when you get into the hobby a bit more, you'll want to strive for a more life-like appearance. I have spent whole weekends in the loft to be greated by a "is that all you've done?" response from family GRRRR!!!! "That's my lifes work that track, look at the way the....." They have usually wondered off at that point :o)

Once you have the ballast down, do try to weather it a bit - it only stayed cleanish out on the runs, the stations were usualy filthy with the most black being up where the locos stop at signals, stations etc... if you really want to go mad, you can weather the rails by painting the sides with rust colour (I've never seen a shiny rail side) I actually use red primer and a dusting of some of the weathering colours from precision paint but trust me you need to be a glutton for punishment coz masking off the track (after ballasting) is a royal pain. Others have painted the rails before laying but I don't like the idea of scarping paint away where you need rail joiners or solder. Remember not to spend too much time in the loft after you have been spraying or you'll be bobbing about by the ceiling when you come out :o) after painting, go over the railtops and slightly on teh inside with some 800 grit wet and dry (dry of course) The final result really is rather good but sheesh!, the time to do it, and I was really hating it by the second day.

I've always found the hand operated spray bottles produce a very coarse spray which displaces the ballast. I now use one of those hand pressurised aerosol sprays. Lakeland Plastics do a 'Refillable Pump ?n? Spray' for cooking oil for 4.95GBP (cat no 3199) (use the oil supplied first!!) Usual disclaimer. I also find I have to use a stronger glue mix than normally recommended, about 50/50 PVA glue / water

Regards Jerry Christie