Have a chance to pick up a couple of buckets of the nice very dark reddish ballast the Great Northern used in Northern Montana.
How could I make it into the correct size for an O-gauge layout, without resorting to a hammer and screens and a lot of time?
Thinking it would be very neat to have "real" ballast, especially that unique reddish stuff the GN and NP used out West.
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Hard to avoid a hammer or equivalent. Maybe you can minimize the mess by putting the stone in a fabric bag first. For sifting, I recommend a kitchen colander.
Avanti posted:Hard to avoid a hammer or equivalent. Maybe you can minimize the mess by putting the stone in a fabric bag first. For sifting, I recommend a kitchen colander.
EXACTLY!!!! That is how I made "small" coal from some real coal I picked up. I also used the same method for cinders/ash. I collected a jar of real steam locomotive ash from the local Live Steam Club, put some of it into a sturdy cloth bag, and smashed it with a big hammer. Truly a no-brain process.
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