KITTY LITTER AS BALLAST??

I've heard there are stores like I think "Northwest Stone" or something like that near Seattle which sells ballast-sized rock and has a large display of the different sizes and colors.

Taking a sample of the ballast you want to one could find an inexpensive match with real stones.

Could work, but make sure you don't have a cat or kitty could get confused and eliminate inappropriately on the layout. 

My new O27 layout will have cat litter ballast. Got two huge boxes of it all ready to be glued down. I've seen so many good looking layouts that have it, I figured I'd give it a shot. 

I don't see any problems with kitty litter other than finding the right kind without "crystal" or scents. You can even tint it using thinned down oil based paint and just keep stirring or tumbling the container to mix it thoroughly and then spreading it out to dry. I used to make my own grass using this method with sawdust and green paint.

And don't worry about the cat going to the bathroom on it, they only like loose material they can dig in, your $30 a quart ballast will suit them just fine if they find a loose pile of it or an unattended open box! 

Jerry

Here's a few pics of my old 4x8 I built when I lived in Chicago w/ the Cat Litter ballast - 

Keep in mind I have 2 cats & never had a problem w/ them & the ballast

I set up a different layout every year in the backyard and I've fallen for concrete recycle to level road bed  spray with water and it sort of re hardens oh I use the fines its like dust and usually lasts a summer

Good to see this thread still alive.

Lots of good info here.

Rod

yep and that would negate all my hard work training my cat to go on the potty

It has been on my GG layout for years, no signs of rust. Not the best looking but it works if you don't have a Puddy tat.

But Sylvester is the Bad Old Putty Cat!

Amen!

Mike

Kitty litter contains silica gel, and its the silica gel that adsorbs the moisture. Silica gel absorbs moisture by capillary action because its micro-structure is riddled with canals. Applying a coating over kitty litter ballast should substantially cut down on its moisture absorption, but not all of it.

In its natural state (no coating), silica gel can absorb up to 40% of its weight in moisture. By the way, silica gel is odorless, non-flammable and chemically harmless to humans even though there may be a jolly roger on its package. The jolly roger is there to prevent choking because kids think the silica gel packets are candy.

If the cat uses your layout as a toilet, loose the cat and get a gold fish.

I'm not spending "thousands of dollars" on this hobby and I see some people here achieving very fine results with inexpensive materials that look great. Please show more respect for different ideas.

For an excellent yet fairly inexpensive ballast to consider is using a combination of Black Beauty fine slag (sand blasting media) and roofing granules.  A thin layer of Black Beauty is put down first allowing the bed to be slightly wider than the final ballast which will be the roofing granules. 

This is all followed by usual misting with IPA & white glue/water mixture. The granules are available is about 8 different shades from ABC supply @ $46.50 for a 50# pale and the Black Beauty media is available from must building supply dealers (not Depot or Lowes) @ $8.95 for a 50# bag..

In the current (3/13) issue off CCT there's an excellent article on Neal Schoor's layout where he uses this exact method.

Ace I agree with you,But this morning I ordered some ballast from  Brennan's model railroading. I also have the # to ABC Supply . Plush I'll look into some chicken grit. It will be a little time before I'am ready but now is the time to look into all the supplys I may need.Plush there are other places to look into. And then there is always some blend of kitty litter I can also buy.

Prototype Track

Weathered Atlas O with Brennan's Better Ballast

There no doubt it Dennis, your ballast is the very best!!!!

I looked at several ballast alternatives before settling on cat litter for ballast. Roofing granules were intriguing, but I couldn't find any locally. Decomposed granite stone dust didn't look right. Neither did chick grit. Commercial ballast was either too pricy, not local for me to see up close, or just didn't look right. I settled on cat litter because I have seen so many well done layouts that feature it. It was available locally, so I could see it before buying, and it was abundant. Cost was a factor, but not a big one. The ability to see it before purchase, availability, and how it looks on other layouts were what made up my mind. And if I decide I don't like it, I can still use the cat litter in the litter box. 

Not all kitty litter contains silica gel and there are several different types out there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_litter

And again, the cat will not pee on your track because you used kitty litter for ballast, they like to use a soft easily dug material !

To call people cheap as several have here is a little petty, how much I spend on my layout and how I save money here or there to save a buck or two is my business. I don't spend thousands of dollars on it, maybe 500-700 a year at most total on everything if that much.  If I save a buck on scenery then I have a buck to spend on the trains themselves. To hear some of you guys complain about someone using kitty litter you'd think you hold stock in a model ballast company!

Must be nice to have a lot of money!

Whats next, call me cheap because I make trees out of natural materials instead of buying them? Using real sand and dirt as ground cover? What about using Elmers glue instead of a proper ballast cement? (Personally I use a thinned Romans Wallpaper Paste from Home depot for gluing scenic materials).

I think making a great looking layout from materials not normally used for layout building beats a great looking layout built using ready made LHS bought stuff, shows better modeling skills in my opinion!

If you want to use kitty litter go ahead, if you don't like the look you can always change it, it's not like none of us have ever had to rip out our handiwork to correct something we didn't like or have turn out as good as we hoped.

Jerry

What about this:  Use the expensive stuff where people will really look close.  Use the less expensive stuff away from exact eyes.  That is a modeling trick for buildings.  Why not use the same idea on the track?

I wouldn't use kitty litter only because I've had a situation where our cat urinated on the layout -- and I didn't use litter, but rather the woodland scenics grey ballast.  I could only imagine this issue would be more prevalent with actual litter.  Point is that this incident necessitated rebuilding that portion of the layout and then blocking the cats from that portion of our playroom.  Some cats are better with litter box training than others and I wouldn't chance it.  That being said, woodland scenics materials are nice but very expensive and I have used other building materials such as mortar / blasting media, or other materials I can find at Home Depot rather than pay for certain scenic materials that are overpriced.

Don't think anyone has mentioned that cat litter = radioactive in some cases.  Apparently the material used to make it is often found close to radioactive minerals in the ground.

Just FYI, I don't weigh in on either side of the debate...But I also hold my breath when I change the cat box.

KITTY LITTER AS BALLAST??= YOU WILL BE SO VERY, VERY SORRY!!!!

Look at the publish date in your book. I will lay odds that it's old and out-dated. Just as is using kitty litter as ballast.. In the olden days model railroaders used what they could find. My dear friend.... these are not the olden days anymore. There are many items out there nowadays. If you want your layout to look like the real thing.. look around for the real thing. You can even buy O-Gauge Railroad Ballast. And yes, you can find any color your little ol' heart desires. If you're looking to build a First Class layout.....SPEND A FEW BUCKS.

There are those out there who will spend $1K plus for a locomotive and who will spend $3K for a complete train. Most of these are the same folks who will build their layout on the cheap. Can you imagine building a Frist Class layout using second hand lumber and using lumber yard dunnage. It all boils down to one thing. If you want to use trash building a trashy layout...Don't expect your $3K plus trains to look vey good. Odds are... these same high end trains will look like trash as well.

Find yourself a good layout book and good scenery book published in this century.

RL NYC, our vet told us some cats have a texture issue when it comes to places they urinate. We have a cat that is well trained litter box wise but if she finds a used dryer sheet on the floor she will urinate on it. Apparently some cats will choose to use something that has a certain feel to their paws (or has an ammonia smell to it) like the dryer sheet but will ignore a fresh dryer sheet, tissue or piece of paper even tho to us they seem very similar.

Personally I think cats do this kind of stuff just to p*** us off but I can't prove it!

Flagler for a moment I thought I might have to call you on the radiation thing but you were not to far off the mark!

From what I can tell, just about everything has some level of natural radioactivity so I'm not worried, can't do anything about it anyways!

http://www.orau.org/ptp/collec...oducts/catlitter.htm

http://chemistry.about.com/b/2...-are-radioactive.htm

http://www.slate.com/articles/...lly_radioactive.html

http://www.snopes.com/critters/gnus/litter.asp

And don't go to the beach or work in the garden or eat food grown in dirt either!

http://www.graniteland.com/inf...-granite-radioactive

"The radioactivity of all the materials around us comes from tiny quantities of mostly uranium that is inside of almost any natural material. Sedimentary rocks (likesandstone for example) contain about one to four micrograms of uranium per gram of rock. Igneous rocks (that is basalt or granite) can contain between 0.5 to four micrograms of uranium per gram of rock. Sounds quite a lot. However, usual sand (like beach sand for instance) contains about three micrograms of uranium per gram of sand. And the average soil contains one to three micrograms of uranium per gram."

I'm guessing that since many ballast products are stone based they also contain trace amounts of radioactivity.

Pappy can you honestly say that Christopher2035s layout doesn't look good even with the kitty litter? If not than this is one tough crowd! Looks pretty good to me, we all should be able to build something that looks this good. 

See Chris, you asked a model railroading landscaping question and we all learned a little something about cat behavior and naturally occurring radioactivity! Kind of like our version of 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Jerry

I have been using Dennis Brennen's better ballast from day 1. It is so realistic in color.

I also use his dark colored yard ballast which really highlights that area.

Order his book, there are great tips as far as laying the ballast, bonding it, as well

as weathering the ballast. My layout is really starting to perk up.

Very true, very true.  I was always a "dog person" and my wife had cats.  Now I appreciate both.  Our kitties always "challenge" us.  But they are very good pets, and full members of the family. 

Back to the topic of the thread:  some of the statements about cost here are a bit over the top.  Take a deep breath fellas.  Not everyone in this hobby is made of money.  We've got two small kids and I've got to make sure that their education and other future needs are properly provided, so blowing thousand dollar bills on trains is out of the question.  And I've already have more trains than I can run, so it doesn't make sense to keep stocking up.  Doesn't make me any less of an enthusiast.

The other thing I will note is that I believe that the layout, whatever materials are used, is more important than the trains.  Take a basic, Lionel MPC undetailed diesel locomotive and a string of so-so passenger or freight cars and put it on a nice, well detailed and interesting layout and even those average trains come to life.  Take a fabulous set like the Blue Comet or Pensy K-4 with matching consist and put it on a board of wood in a circle and it looks "blah."  That is why the layout is important, and it is also important to be creative in the choice of materials and not simply assume that the woodland scenics display area at the "LHS" is your only answer.  Whatever works to produce a nice looking layout -- and judging from this approach folks here have come up with a number of nicely done layouts -- is the "right" answer.

Jerry -  Thank you for the kind words.  I built that layout back in late 2007 when I first got back into the hobby.  While I consider it crude compared to what I have learned to do since then, there was still a certain charm about it

The history of this hobby is a history of scratchbuilding and making do with what could be found. The name of Frank Ellison, who made his buildings out of painted cardstock, is spoken with reverence. Years ago, OGR had a regular column called "Scrounger's Corner." Granted, the scrounging and scratchbuilding was driven by necessity, and no one would not say that these are better times for the hobby, with so many excellent scenery products now available.

But why the hostility toward the person who wants to do things "old-school"? Shouldn't we appreciate it when people use common items creatively? How is the exercise of creativity now looked down upon, while the exercise of purchasing power is raised up as some kind of virtue?

nickaix:

I sure appreciate your comments. Just because somebody out there does something different, in this case coming up with a product that can have a dual purpose, they should be encouraged for their creativity.

I am currently re-ballasting much of my layout and I needed a substantial quantity. Heck, the shipping cost alone for what I require would add significantly to the cost of buying an out of state product. So I went on the hunt for something suitable and found a local supplier for a crushed granite material that was very cost effective, looks great, and had no retched shipping expense (think about shipping 100 lbs to Maine).

Yes, I have used a name brand for some of my layout that is on a different level, and in the past paid dearly to ship it, but not again. The new stuff looks as good if not better so I am happy with it, and that is all that really matters.

Dave....if you have a roofing supply contractor or store nearby...perhaps Home Depot or Lowe's....or even a large hardware store, you should be able to find the roofing granules.  I found them at a roofing contractor.  They came in 50lb pales for about $25.00....

Alan

I liked the results of kitty litter ballast on my door layout.

Go to  http://www.abcsupply.com/branch/locations,  find the location nearest you and give them a call.  BTW neither Depot nor Lowes will carry the granules.

Hi to all

I am using white roof granules, and tinted using powder weatherizing colors.

so far so good!

Andre.

Both Home Depot and Lowe's in my area have the roofing granules....they are tan in color but they can order other colors.  This may not be the case at all HD and Lowes locations...

Alan

Kitty litter ballast: building 3-rail cat crappers.

Tidy Cat Lightweight kitty litter will work as ballast.

Andrew

Use the less expensive Tidy Cat Lightweight Cat Litter as the base, then glue on top a thin layer of the more expensive Woodland Scenics Coarse Gray Ballast.

Andrew

Your local granite producer may offer it in a crushed substance which would be an excellent alternative. That is exactly what I used.

And..of course there are several of our advertisers that offer ballast.... 

Alan