Ballast and Gar Graves

John....I feel the same way you do and on my past layout I did not glue the ballast down.  Yep, I can hear it now...."you have to glue it down because if you don't it will get into the gears, etc...."  Well, in 10 years of running, I never had a problem with unglued ballast.  What I did was put it down and lightly mist it with wet water and for whatever reason it did not move around that much.  It made changing track much more easy....  This time, I am not sure what I will do.  I am about to start my ballasting and I am thinking about mixing in with the wet water a very small amount of white glue....just enough to make a little stickiness and see what happens..

 

Alan

Put the ballast on the sale/trade forum and be done with it.  After I had to re-arrange some ballasted track on an HO layout I vowed to never ballast again.  In fact, my strong desire to not ballast is a big reason why I opted for a "toy" style tube track layout when I came over to O three rail.

 

Pete

Hi John,

 

If you used white glue and water as your bonding agent, the ballast will come loose with an application of water.

you bring up a good point.  run-in a new layout for a few months, make sure all the track gremlins are put to rest, ...THEN consider ballasting.  it does look good as a finishing touch when done well.

Brennan's makes an excellent product and a fine friendly company to deal with.  So..I can rinse the GarGraves with water.  Dennis, will the wooden ties be ruined by the water?  Again, Brennan's is a top shelf company.

Coming from my HO experience, I treat ballasting as the last step of a completed railroad.  After all from a scenic perspective alone this is the most realistic look.  To me it allows for everything to be working together properly first.  I also believe in using a natural product rock ballast as it's heavier, applies easier, and stays better with minimal glue needed.  This comes form lessons hard learned doing it other ways.

 

In the long run I think a realistic layout needs ballast to be complete.  Of course on more traditional toy style layouts, this does not hold true.

I have ballasted Gargraves track and Ross turnouts, ballast is held in place with the common 50/50 glue water mixture. When I need to remove or add track I use a dedicated small cheap shop vac, dental picks and screwdrivers. When done with the replacement I put the same Ballast back down. works for me. 

At times glue-system ballasting can be akin to undergoing root canals or prostate biopsies but its just a part of scenicking the railroad and can be done routinely with proper prep.

 

First place a plastic or drop cloth under the benchwork area to protect floor covering boxes or whatever. If not too lazy, caulk railpower wire riser holes in the benchwork. Then bring a roll of paper towels to mop excess wet water or glue mix that bleeds out of the ballast after application and keep the waste basket handy.

 

Apply the ballast with a small paper cup, brush it out and dress the shoulders. Dribble on wet water from a mustard squeeze bottle followed by 50/50 wet water/white glue mix from a ketchup squeeze bottle [both $2 at Dollar Store]. Then redress the shoulders at tie ends for scatter or profile slide from applying the the mix. Blot the excess water,etc, accummulating both near term and over the next hour.

 

Only do about 2' of ballasting at a time.

Patience. Vacuum for loose later.

See "0-5-0 ballasting machine" in photo below. Unglued ballast shown.

Now where would I  ever get dental instruments.....

Dewey, where did you get the beautiful yellow ballast instrument in the picture?

The ONLY reason I use it is because it makes the track looked finished.

 

Time has to be dedicated solely to laying the stuff and cleaning up the mess.  Shortly after I had put some down I ran my Atlas GP9 around and got a single grain of ballast stuck in the gears.  It didn't cause any damage, but it sure could have if I had not caught it in time.

 

It also eliminates anything you do to cut down on noise.  I laid 3/8" anti-fatigue matting as a roadbed and it made things super quiet.  As soon as I put down the ballast I could hear the volume pick back up.

 

Gargraves with its thick ties uses more ballast than most I would expect.  I used some Modeling Fibre to pack between the ties so I would use less ballast, and thinking it would help on the noise abatement, but it didn't help once it dried out.

 

Good thing is I don't run my trains fast so the noise is minimal anyway, but unless someone makes some roadbed out of memory foam where we can press the track down in it, I doubt we'll ever see a non-messy, quiet system.

 

I've seen folks say the noise from their layouts drowns out any sounds they have in their engines . That's a shame to spend all those $$$ on a nice sounding engine only to have that happen.

Dr. John

Bought it off the counter of a LHS many years ago. It is not really needed to establish the profile, a brush will work dust as well. For dressing the shoulders/edges just use a stiff straight edge piece of stiff cardboard.

 

Frank

Stained from spreading cheap mustard on white bread.

I posted this on another thread recently.

I used gargraves track and ROSS curves layed on VinylBed with arubber ballast which is NOT glued in place.

If the ballast shifts  [rare], it cane be dressed up with a paint brush.

 

 

 

Charlie,

 

That looks pretty darn good

Charlie:

Thanks for the info and photos.  That looks good and sounds easy to install and change if necessary.  Who makes that rubber ballast and who sells it?

 

Thanks,

 

Bill

As I said above....regardless of the type of ballast one uses...I don't think it is absolutely necessary to glue down.  I understand why folks glue it down and it makes perfect sense but in 10 years of running trains, I didn't glue mine down and never had an issue with it.  As Charlie said in his post....if it got out of place a quick brushing with a small artist paint brush took care of it...

 

Alan

Bill

I purchased the rubber ballast at a local hobby shop in 1998.

Don't think they are still in business.

Now down to the last gallon jug of it.

The lable reads M&R Distributors, PO Box 152, Circleville, NY, 10919

 

Looks like scenery express carries rubber ballast, but have never seen it

http://www.sceneryexpress.com/products.asp?dept=1109

Look here:

 

http://www.modelrailscenes.com...ries-track-train.htm

John,

 

Sorry for not jumping back sooner. In answer to your question--no, water will not hurt the GarGraves ties.

Charlie:
Thanks, I'll probably get it from Scenery Express.  I see that I’m not the only one using layout materials bought many years ago!

 

Bill

On a layout where I expect to change things around at some point in the future I have used a fine grey kitty litter clay stuff sift it out to get the little stuff out and just use the larger bits. With Gargraves you can brush it till it sits just a touch under / below the tops of the ties. This significantly reduces the chances of anything getting into the gears and with clay (instead or rock or hard stuff) if it gets in the gears it curshes out pretty easily. When I need a good dustying or redo of the track work or layout just vacum it up. Cheap enough to replace with new stuff.

I had an HO layout for years with loose ballast, never had a problem. As long as you profile it at or slightly below the tops of the ties (as it should be), you probably won't have issues.

Dennis Brennan has a great book entitled "Realistic Modeling for Toy Trains" and he has a great idea in it.  He lays track on foam but does not glue or screw it but splits N scale roadbed and places (as a taper and a holder) on either side of the track with glue and then ballasts over it.  Great concept and I wish I knew about it before laying all the roadbed and screwing everything... Great book BTW...look for it.

John