How Do You Glue Track Ballast?

On our modular club layout, I've been using 50% Woodland Scenics cement, 25% Elmer's Glue, and 25% water. Prior to application, I spray 100% isopropyl alcohol on the surface. I usually use an infant nasal syringe to apply the glue.

Gilly

Another member experimented with Mat Media, but had a problem with it turning white.

When I glued the ballast on my Atlas"O" track I got a small "squeeze" bottle (with the flip up nozzle) and used that to apply the 50/50 mix in a steady stream. Just run the bottle cap down the track between the center rail & outside rail (on each side) with a steady stream of glue/water mix. It saturates that ballast enough to hold. I then just run the nozzle down the tapered shoulder area using the outside rail to guide the nozzle cap.

Make sure you used enough isopropyl to thoroughly wet the ballast before flooding with the glue mix. This method worked fast for me and the ballast is holding well.

Alex,

This is what i did , you can give it a try see what you think, if you didnt toss the sprayer.

 I also have a dollar store sprayer. I use 60% hot  water, 40  elmers school glue , and a few drops of liquid detergent. Ive read  of people who are into the moleculor break down of how this should be done, but this method worked for me.Ballast is  concrete like .

I use the tried and true old fashion inexpensive method:

I mix "wet water"-- just tap water with about 5 drops of dishwasher soap per gallon.

I then mix a gallon of 60/40 wet water/white glue. I dispense the wet water from a mustard squeeze bottle, thoroughly saturating the ballast[the key to good glue penetration is to really wet out the ballast]. I follow up by dribbling the glue mix from a ketchup squeeze bottle. You can use a turkey baster to apply the mixtures but I find the $1 a pair Walmart yellow and red squeeze bottles the best for controlling the application.

It is advisable to place a drop cloth under the layout to contain the mixture that escapes through wire holes [I try to caulk around track pickup wires but it is not fail-safe. I also have holes for Tortoise turnout throw wires].

My method has been to set things down with "wet" water......2 drops dish detergent in water.  Glue has been either elmers or woodlands scenic cement diluted 50-50 in water applied with an oral syringe.  (easily obtainable for me due to work).  This forces me to work slowly and ensures better coverage. 

I use the Scenic Express matte medium concentrate mixed 1/5 with water then add several drops of dish soap and dispense this with a squeeze bottle.  I am using brennans better ballast and it locks it down very well.  It hardens enough that you need to chisel track out if you want to make any layout changes.

Just my opinion but, the absolute best method I, and the rest of us in the Independent Hi-Railers, MidWest Division modular group, have found is:

1) Use sand box sand to take up most of the space and contour of the area to be ballasted.

2) Spread just enough ballast to cover the sand, and with a stiff brush, get it EXACTLY where you want it.

3) Moisten the area with 70% CHEAP alcohol.

4) Use Matt-Medium, thinned to the consistency of whole milk, i.e. about 50-50 with water. By using Matt-Medium, there is also some sound deadening properties, as opposed to Elmer's white glue.

I forgot to mention that I do add a couple of drops of detergent to the 50-50 glue mix.

This mix, or close variant, has worked well for me; it's just that I was trying to find an alternative to the dropper or squeeze bottle, and so far have not had any luck spraying it.

Thx.

Alex

You said you applied a drop or two at a time with a squeeze bottle.  When using a squeeze bottle, you should be applying a good squirt between the ties and along the outside edges. This takes no time at all. If you've previously soaked it with wet water, the glue mix will penetrate immediately.

I just finished re-ballasting my layout. I used 70% isopropyl alcohol followed by a few heavy coats of Woodland Scenics Scenic cement. That ballast ain't goin' no where once it dries fully! 

I tried several kinds of dish washing liquid and Dove does the best. Elmers white glue also will stay "Mixed" better than the more expensive brands and doesn't tend to clump which may be why it clogged your sprayer
The warm water will make it flow better.
With the volume you need to cover it may be easier to ditch the spray bottle and find or make a nozzel as wide as the track with a very thin opening and let gravity do the work as you move along.
A gallon plastic gas can comes to mind with the small cap on the back so you can vent it for an even flow(Would also be easy to clean with the garden hose afterwards)
.... Just thinkin out loud.

David

What happens if you do not glue the ballast? Will there be much movement?

I keep ballast in place using a very simple and time-tested method used for all scales over many decades:

1.  Mix some "wet water"--couple of drops of dishwashing liquid in a few cups of regular tap water.

2.  Place the wet water in a perfume atomizer (or similar dispenser) and apply a soaking mist of the wet water over the shaped ballast (something that produces a mist will prevent the ballast stones from moving)..

3.  Follow this with a 50/50 mix of ordinary white glue and water, again with a couple of drops of dishwashing liquid added) added to the ballast with an eye-dropper, syringe, baster, or any suitable device that will allow you to control the amount of liquid dispensed.

4.  Apply the bonding mixture liberally between the rails until it thoroughly saturates the ballast and begins to leak out the bottom edge of the ballasted roadbed on both sides (it will make quite a mess, but when dry you'll never even know it was there).

Simple, cheap, and 100% effective!

A tip not many seem to mention I have found useful is to add paint to your glue mixture. I use the customary few drops of dishwashing solution, Elmers white glue and warm water. I mix this in a hair dye applicator with a long tip for dispensing. 

Since you have placed dishwashing detergent, which tends to bubble, leave some space in your container for "sloshing" so it will be well mixed by shaking. Otherwise the beginning of your supply will be too thin and the end too thick.

After sufficiently shaking and mixing, add your paint. I use "Burnt Umber" to give the ballast a bit of a grimy look with a hint of iron. I have typically added paint until the mixture resembles chocolate milk in color, but have been going darker to get a more notable result.

After the ballast dries, I apply a watered down coat of burnt umber with a dabbing brush to get it dirtier. That mix is about 80 water/20 paint. Lastly, a few applications of ink wash.

Harry, do you have a picture of this? I would love to see how it looks.

Jonathan

Harry wrote:

"I mix this in a hair dye applicator with a long tip for dispensing."

That is exactly what I use, and it has worked fine. I tried to apply eight drops between each tie, just over the ballast (two outside each rail, and two between the center rail and each outer rail).

But now I just run the blottle over the track and let a stream flow over the ballast and ties; two streams on the outside of each outer rail, and two streams between center and outer rails - should be enough. I then use my finger to wipe (displace) any glue that remains over the ties. Finally, I wipe off the rails - several times.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow.

Alex

Jonathan,

This track had gray paint added to the glue, and also a final wash of gray when ballast was fully dry, as Harry describes.

The paint tones down the contrast between ballast and ties, and tends to bring everything together. I had often given the track a final wash, but first heard of the paint/glue mix idea from Dennis Brennan.

Jim

FWIW, once you have removed the glue from the elmers bottle and watered it down, you can put the diluted glue back in the bottle and it works great for soaking the ballast and it is acurrate enough to avoid getting any on the rails or anywhere else you don't want it.

Thanks so much, Jim. Wonderful picture, and really nice effect with the ballast color.

The 50/50 water/isopropyl sprayed on, followed by 50/50 white glue/water (+ little detergent) dispensed with the squeeze bottle worked fine, and didn't take as long as I had anticipated.

Here is a picture of the area I am working on. More pictures in the layout forum(*). 

Thanks for your help!

Alex

(*) See my Hidden Pass Junction RR layout under construction here:

https://ogrforum.com/d...ent/2415514336550790

Gee Whiz Jim, here I was thinking I was all innovative and all coming up with that on my own.

Step 1. Saturate ballast with wet-water solution

Step 2. Apply liberal amount of 75%/25% water/white glue solution

Step 3. Spray with more wet-water solution.

Step 4. Wipe rails dry, being careful not to disturb the ballast.

You can do large swaths of track quickly. Please forgive the peanut gallery sound effects in the video.

PVA glue is great, except when you want to remove from rails after curing, or when you want to dismantle your layout.  I am getting back into the hobby, but my last layout was a 16x8ft o-scale.  At that time, I used the granules on shingles for ballast, as this was cheap and easy to get (almost next door).  The glue was the perplexing part.  I tried PVA on a small section, and had difficulty removing excess after curing.  A better solution for me was Dextrin.  This is the glue used on paper envelopes: the bond is weak (ballast needs a weak bond), but it can be dissolved with simple soaking by water.  I went by pints: made a solution, then poured in the ballast, stirred.  I then applied the past onto the tracks by fingers.  Excess easily wiped off with wet rag.  Even after curing, rails can be cleaned again with water - it was quite easy.  I wanted a rust colour left on the sides of rails and within the ballast, so I added tincture of iodine to the glue mixture - really good rust colour.  The dextrin glue dried to a finish that was slightly tacky, maybe because I did not dilute the glue sufficiently.  But, it was easy to do, and easy to remove without any damage to my track when I dismantled the layout.  I had to relocate for work, and did not continue the hobby, so I can't say much about longevity.  For the time I had it though, the slight tacky caused all the dust to settle on the ballast, not the rails and not the train wheels.  And, cleaning the rails was easily done with water (to remove all traces of glue from the rail top), then a bit of paint thinner to remove the oil (I always seem to over-lubricate my wheels, so my tracks get oily unintentionally).  Even after cleaning away all glue, the iodine left a trace, so the rails had a slight rust patina (this was cool, actually).  I was even able to re-use the ballast after soaking it in water.  :-)  just in case anyone wants to consider alternatives.  

After all this great advice about glue, water, texture atc just remember that you will have a big mess when you want to make changes to your track. And you Gargraves users will enjoy prying up your track after you have glued the wooden crossties to the table.  While I never use ballast I have toyed with the idea of gluing the edges of the ballast, letting it dry then applying loose ballast on the track itself. Who knows?  Might work.   Odd-d 

I use Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement.  Put it in a spray bottle.  Liberally spray your ballast.  Wipe off your tracks.  Works great.  Matt

I used the Woodland Scenic stuff, added a couple of drops of soap to help it soak in and used it full strength. For my expansion I am having to remove some track and ballast. DILUTE IT! This stuff is a ***** getting up when glued down full strength lol!

I believe I should provide an update:

I already have used 150 lb of ballast from Ballast King (see below) and I am almost done. I am not going to ballast track in tunnels or otherwise hidden, though.

From http://www.ogaugeconnection.co...ocs/BallastKing.html  , the ballast is shown at the bottom of the webpage, $2 per pound, and it is great.

Here are the steps I have been using:

I usually ballast 12 to 16 feet at a time.

1. Cover any switch machines with masking tape (I use 2” blue masking tape for this)

2. Apply ballast with the Ballast King (this step goes the fastest and works great)

3. Using a 1” brush, knock off some the few ballast granules that may be on the inside of the outer rails (this does not take long at all)

4. Spray the entire area with a solution of 50:50 water and alcohol (or a bit more alcohol if not sure)

5. Using a mixture of 50% white Elmer’s glue, 45% water, 5% alcohol and three drops of liquid soap in a small bottle of the glue (7-5/8 oz) I cover the entire ballasted area with a thin coating of glue. I do not attempt to apply drops just between the ties as this takes way too long. Instead, I just dispense streams of glue and cover ballast and ties, and it goes pretty fast. Still, this step takes the longest. (I am on my third gallon of white glue, which I buy for about $14/gal.)

6. Immediately after applying the glue, wipe off the rails with a piece of heavy duty blue paper towel folded and tightly wrapped around a wooden block slightly wider that the track. I turn over the folded paper towel and one sheet does the entire job.

7. With the same block but now wrapped with cloth I go over the rails again with either alcohol or contact cleaner and again go over the rails.

8. Let it dry.

That’s it!

To remove the ballast, which I have done three times in short sections of track, I simply drip water over the ballast that I want to remove, wait a couple of minutes, and using a putty knife, scrape off the ballast, which comes off as though it weren't glued at all.

(Click on pictures for larger size)

Alex

Do not use glue.

Dress up the ballast with a small paint brush when needed.

Charlie, not a bad idea, and I have areas of my RR using what I call dry scenic materials, for over five years and hardly any issues to make me regret same...overall I still do glue my ballast nevertheless.

Bob

Eric Siegel has a nice three part video tutorial on ballasting track.  Here is the address of the first of the three sections of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhBhA_4LLg0

I use the method he desrbies almost exactly, down to using the small cup to pour the ballast like he does.    I particularly like his point of watching for the water-glue mixture to seep out the bottom edge to assure it went all the way through.  (I have about 335 feet but did not do tunnels, etc. - probably did about 310 feet all told, and learned that:

- White glue works much better than yellow glue.  No idea why, but noticeably better.

- Spraying the alcohol as Eric does in the video to "wet" down the whole surface works much better than mixing in 5% alcohol and a bit of detergent does - at least it works better for me.

- I sprayed the glue-water mixture, too, rather than poured as some folks do

- Acetone works wonders to clean up the the rails after

- I made my own ballastking type ballast machine - it was a fun project to build and worked just as well as the videos show them working, but I abandoned its use very early.  I could work just as fast pouring manually with a small bucket like Eric shows in his video, and using a brush to spread it out: pouring and positioning the material is not the major portion of the work (applying the glue and cleaning up is).  I like the slightly uneven distribution of the ballast that results from not using a machine type ballast car to lay it down, too. 

- An option is to only spray a little glue, not enough for it to soak all the way through, just penetrate 1/8 inch or so, gluing the top surface down firm.  I didn't do this, but have talked with people that say they do. 

I know some people do not glue their ballast but I would worry about it working up into locos and truck bearings, etc.  Also, I have the vacuum cleaner car I have made to suck up dust and such from my tracks and it will suck loose ballast right up. 

One of Alex's questions was how to get a spray bottle to actually spray rather than come out as a stream.  I asked this same question at some point and never really received a good answer.  Not so much for ballast but for ground cover.  The solid stream moves around the ground cover.  Anyone have any thoughts?

Paul Edgar

I am starting to ballast and will not be gluing.  On my previous layout, I did not glue the ballast.  I did this as a trial just to see what would happen.  In over 8 years, I never had a problem with the ballast causing any kind of problem.  When it came time to take up the track, it was very simple.....unscrewed the track, lifted it, and then swept up the ballast pouring it back into zip lock bags.  Cleaning the layout was no problem as the hand vac I used was not used to clean the ballast but only the areas adjacent to the track.

Regardless, I can understand why modelers glue their ballast down as this eliminates any doubt and there is no maintenance...(no dressing up as Charlie said above ) and also hand cleaning track is more difficult when the ballast is not stationary unless one uses a track cleaning car.

Alex....the ballasted areas look really great.  You are doing a top notch job!

Alan

A perfume atomizer is what you need!  Works like a charm.

I tend to use a vacuum cleaner to tidy-up the layout from time to time, so glued ballast is a must.  I also prefer to not use screws to hold track in place, and again glued ballast is a must in that situation.

After talking with my good friend Alan, I tried as he had suggested and I left about four feet of double-main track with loose ballast. But, since I am always adding or doing something to the layout, in a few days time I ended up having to redistribute, brush, and almost redo the ballast in that area. Whether due to additional ground cover that I wanted to add, or a new road, or signals, etc., I ended up disturbing the loose ballast.

Sometimes it just didn't look good after the giant-paws messed things up, but other times the loose ballast ended up where it could cause problems, such as against the inside of the outer rails. And although it did not happen to me as I seldom clean the track (except after applying the ballast glue, as I described, above) I can picture knocking some of the loose ballast around when wiping the track.

I guess in areas where there absolutely will be no more work done, I could get by with the loose ballast; but I don’t see any portions of my layout fitting that description. So I went back and glued the ballast on those four feet of double track, and have glued it all ever since.

And yes, it definitely would go much quicker if the glue mix could be sprayed. I have several spray bottles, and all sprayed water perfectly – a fine mist. But as soon as I added glue, even as little as 1:3 ratio, the mist turned into a stream. Admittedly, I did not try Allan’s ‘perfume atomizer’ suggestion. And also as Allan does, I do use a vacuum cleaner to tidy things up. After the ballast glue has dried, as well as after any other ground cover, I lightly vacuum the entire surface. (Lightly vacuum: Vacuum nozzle about one inch away from the surface.) However, for the ballast between the rails, I run the vacuum nozzle right on the rails as I don’t want any loose particles floating around.

But that’s just me.

Alex

I use Scenic Express matt medium and their spray bottles. That works very well for me. I use the plastic ketchup bottle to glue ballast. 

I agree with pennsyk4. Why use glue at all. Sooner or later you will want to change things around.

romiller

The atomizer is used to mist the ballast before gluing, NOT to apply the glue mixture (glue,water, couple drops of detergent) itself.

The atomizer mist (water and a few drops of detergent) pre-wets the ballast with "wet water" and helps to keep things in place.

The glue mixture is applied with a large eye-dropper, small meat baster, or similar dispenser.  I apply the glue mixture down the center of the roadbed until it oozes out the lower edges of the ballasted roadbed, then add more along the outside slopes of the roadbed.  Looks pretty awful when first applied, but when everything dries it looks great and all the ballast is held firmly in place.

Although it takes some time to apply/shape/glue ballast--another very good good reason for building a layout in stages or sections--nothing looks as good or as real as properly ballasted track.  And, quite frankly, I've never seen loose ballast on an O gauge layout that looks anywhere near as good as glued ballast.  With operation, loose ballast tends to move out of place way too easily.