Closeup carpet ballast

exposures gear will be a problem I guess.

AG. 

I wonder if you could do something similar with dark gray thin foam strips and avoid the possibility of getting carpet threads in the gears?  I like the look of the ballast, just wondering if there's a better material to accomplish the same look.

Terry cloth aka towels. Laid over two strips of felt window insulation strips. Tested for 2 years and not one thread or piece of lint to cause trouble. Avery glue stick is used to hold down edges. Much lighter to work with than carpet and I can buy it in Walmart anytime. Left over towels went into the linen closet and made wife happy.

The previous post shows it between the rails, which gets the threads much close to wheels and gears.

I've used the exact same indoor/outdoor carpet on my home layout (from Home Depot) for the past year and a half. I've never had fiber problems but then again, I don't have the track "embedded" in the carpet. I would not want to put it like it is picture in the original post.

bigo426,

  That is pretty nice looking. Can you explain that a little more?

  It looks like the felt is resting directly under the track, how wide are those (felt insulation) strips? Then, the towels are under the felt? You get the towels and the felt insulation from Walmart?

  Tom

Jim,

  Thank you for posting the close-up picture and the thread.

Tom

I have lots of carpet ballast ... actually the whole landscape for my floor layout. It's low pile and the track is high enough to not get fibers in the mechanisms. 

Sorry for taking a few days to reply, but work and life have been very distracting. The black ties are not the felt. Under what you see are two strips of 1" wide felt window insulation. The brand here is Frost King and can be had in Home Depot or most True Value Stores. Over that is laid the grey terry cloth. The ties are Moondog rubber ties and another brand I can't think the name of. The track is on top of it all. I cut the terry cloth with sharp razor blades or utility knife. After a while I could do it free hand without tracing a pattern. In other spots I am using green, brown,and beige. Sound proofing quality is excellent. I use Avery glue sticks for the adhesive. It holds well and lets go with a tug if you need to move things. You have to have some patience on curves and where wires pass through, but it is very forgiving. Walmart has a very cheap towel about $2.99 each, but IMO does not look good when under the track. So I use the $3.99 towel. I think plush towels look better in yard areas as the ties really sink in.

Very nice. For some reason, your picture disappeared on my tablet (I just see "plug in not supported"). I hope some day that you can post a thread showing a few pictures in a step-by-step process.

Tom 

So the 1" insulation strips and terry cloth are the road bed under the track ?? When I put my track down I used the outdoor carpet as road bed then later put it between the rails. I haven't had any fiber problems. I have some dark brown outdoor carpet I am going to use on my #5 loop, the smallest  -dirty ballast !!

Ahh! Now it makes sense. Originally, I thought the terry cloth looked like the felt. Last question, what department in Walmart sells the terry cloth towels?

Thanks for the pictures,

 Tom

The better the towel, the better the look. I didn't want to spend $9.99 on a towel. The brand label is Mainstays on the ones I got. They have a few quality levels. I went for their second cheapest. They do have towels in household or howswares.

The housewares marketing guru at Wally World will wonder what is going on with a rush on their towels. He/she will tell the boss it was their brilliant idea. That is usually how it works.

My first thought also was that of trouble with fiber getting into the gears and axels. Perhaps spraying the carpet down with an adhesive or medium to lock the fibers down before placing under the track could help?