Seeking Realistic Yard Ballast

I went to a local farm supply store & got some "chicken grit" its gray and the perfect size. It only cost $3.99 for a 10 lb. bag. You might check it out.    TRAIN NERD AL

I use Woodland scenics gravel ballast, medium or course grade, then stain and dirty it a bit.

I forgot about chicken grit, that should very easy for me to get in my area.  I suppose I could mix in some WS cinder ballast to darken it more.  Is chicken grit dusty?

The most economical way is to purchase some starter size chicken grit at a farm supply store. Tractor supply also carries it.  . Depending on the color that you want buy a shade of gray latex or vinyl paint at a hobby or crafts shop. Then put a quantity of the grit in a 1 gallon plastic bucket. Toss in a 50/50 water paint mix into the grit and turn it. Spread it out on cardboard to let it dry. After its dry give it a few short sprays of very dark brown paint to create a variety of color. Allow that to dry and then it can be used. Note that prototypical ballast is often the color of the stone being quarried in the local area. Ballast can be dark gray, off white a brown mix and other shades.

Lee, do you have any photos?  I recently tried an ink/alcohol mix on WS Dark Gray and I did't care how it turned out.  

Here's a couple of my yard's I use roofing granules gray and black .

Guy

Go for the roofing granules which you can get in 5 gallon pails from most building supply stores

I purchased 180 lbs of dark yard ballest from  Brennans Ballast. It is going to look great.

...keep the rails polished...  

What NCT said 

What Steamfan77 said

Here's one very easy way to get varying shades of ballast:

Take a small amount of the ballast material of your choice, put it is a jar with an ink/alcohol mixture, screw on the cap, shake, and strain. Do several batches with different concentrations and different colors (e.g., try some brown ink), let them dry and then blend.

This will work with most any ballasting material--even real stone.

I don't think most of the guys/gals ballast fastrack but I did play with it. After  ink washing the track I used a combination of roof granules and woodland scenic course gray ballast.

Just info , roof granules are magnetized. I tested the granules with  a heavy magnet and it did pick up some granules. Not many but it did some. That's why I made sure the ballast was glued completely.

Gluing it that securely will  be a real PITA if I ever need to replace a section of track.

good luck.

Larry

 Still working, still having fun.

I use gray moon dust, sometimes called screening. It is used for level bed under pavers, n also by road departments a anti skid material on winter roadways along with rock salt. I use a window screen and sift the fines and save the larger stuff for other uses. If you don't want the fine dust, it can be removed with a flour sifter. It get the material at a building supply house for about $5 a bag, or it can be purchased in bulk for far less. If you have a gravel drive, or some other suitable area, the waste can be spread there.

Don

Go to a local supplier of granite stone products that are used for fireplaces and other decorative purposes. I paid $ 8.50 for a 50 LB bag and the stuff looks great. I used over 200 lbs. Total cost was under $ 40.00. Beat that for looks and price, and remember it is the real thing, granite.

Eric of Eric's Trains swears by Brennan' Better ballast.  This stuff is made of real crushed granite and  it look very nice.  They have a darker yard variant that might fit the bill. Good luck! 

  I did a large 3 rail yard once with  mortar mix as a gray base then added different colors of sanded grout in spots. It was kinda handy since it didn't need glue, just applied it dry,then spread it out with a large brush, then sprayed it with water  from a mister bottle,  then let it set up for a few days...DaveB

I used ballast from Scenic Express. Combination of dirt, cinders, and dark gray ballast. I stick to the finer granular s. But I add some coarse in as well.  Yards weren't really maintained to well in the steam era. Your after many different textures and color. Not to pretty or uniformed. Most times I mix multiples in one large bucket to keep a non uniformed look. More on the cinder blends.

I like the idea of using cement and sanded grout, but I wonder if ballast can be added to the mix? The plain water spray is an excellent way to activate the cement, and it only has to be enough to harden the outer layer. This process eliminates the need to clean glue or other residue from the track and ties. I'm going to experiment with this process, as I have all types of material that can be used as ballast. For anything white, I would strongly recommend using white Portland, as the standard gray Portland may darken the ballast material. 

Don

"I like the idea of using cement and sanded grout, but I wonder if ballast can be added to the mix? The plain water spray is an excellent way to activate the cement, and it only has to be enough to harden the outer layer. "

   I only did this on one layout so never got it fine tuned. I think any additional ballast added might need some extra glue as the mortar is already mixed with sand so might not have enough cement for more rock? . I'd probably use sanded grout for additions if possible or add ballast after the base layer had set using white glue and wet water like on most layouts. I found some dry spots in my mortar ballast when I tore out the layout but they didn't cause any problem during it's lifespan. The dry mortar soaks up a lot of water so it takes more additional spraying to get it all wet apparently....DaveB

Wow - thanks for all the great responses, guys.  I guess I have some thinking to do now...

We'll I went to TSC this morning and the chicken grit I saw looks way too light, almost white really.  So I did some digging and found a sample from Dennis Brennan when I bought a chain link fence kit from him years ago.

I ended up calling Dennis and we talked for over ten minutes, he's a great guy.  I ended up ordering two bags of ballast and some Superior sand.

I have two containers and a section of track in the car. I'm going to experiment with adding Portland cement into the ballast, and apply it to the track, then spray it with water and see how the samples turn out on Friday. I'll post results with pics either Friday night or Saturday. I'm going to a friend's house to help him lay road bed and track on his Christmas layout on Friday after dinner.

Don

I do not have much of a train yard anymore.  Used to have a big one with seven sidings and 22 switches, but I removed it to put in other things.  Here is the area near my remaining station, etc.  Woodland Scenics medium ballast gray mostly. 

Slightly off topic, but before you start ballasting your yard, you want to bring the ground level up to the top of the ties. Sure, you can use ballast to do that but it means you're going to use a lot more ballast. Wigville RR (Guy) posted great pictures that illustrate the difference between mainline and yard ballasting.

To bring the "ground level UP", I use 1/4" blue fanfold foam insulation. It's cheap and cuts easily with a box cutter. Make sure to peal off the film before you paint it. I glue it down with Liquid Nails Foam adhesive.

Gilly

Another vote for Brennan's. We used his black yard ballast in the yard on our modular layout (Stillmeadow Crossing). Great product and great guy to deal with. 

Bob

PRR Fan, I like your layout....well executed. Relative to ballast I like Woodland Scenics as I can readily mix colors and textures to best match what I believe was employed by the PRR. 

I will never claim to be an expert but I will suggest that you look at how we did the yard here at the Munoz Lines. The key is not to rely on one type of material for realism. The reason is Mother Nature never dOes. It is the combination of materials, techniques and placement of objects that helps achieve higher levels of realism. Look at as many photos as you can, too !

Here are a few pics of my experimental ballast with cement as a hardening agent. The ballast is still wet in these pics. On one end is gray ballast with a little Black Beauty for color variation. The middle is more Black Beauty then ballast, and the third is a lighter material with no Black Beauty. I t should be dry tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see the results. I'll post some pics of the dry project tomorrow or Saturday.

Don

I apologize for the blurry photo, I thought I eliminated all the bad shots.

Don

Here is the sample after drying. Two things I noticed are: 

1 The ballast in between the ties doesn't show the same gravelly consistency as the outside slope to grade. 

2 The ballast didn't achieve the hardness I expected it to. 

I mixed nearly equal parts of Portland cement to ballast. I didn't sift the fine material out, knowing that I needed to have something finer to help bind the cement. When I used cement and Black Beauty, after drying, it crumbled easily. I'm going to try adding some fine mason sand into the mix. I will also sprinkle some extra ballast on top between the ties. On to round three.

Don

Why are you using cement?

What about some of the abrasives used in sandblasting?  Just looking at the tsc website and it seems there is a decent variety at a reasonable price.  Any thoughts?

Ballast yards?

It all depends on the era and power you model.

Old yard tracks before the EPA were just black oil & grease where the engines were parked. The other car areas contained grass with cinders. It’s easy to model using some black electrical tape between the 3 rails that’s painted flat black.

You would see ballast when yards were new mostly in engine areas.

Look at the RR books and decide what’s best for you.

I used fine black ballast on the yard and spur tracks, because Santa Fe used volcanic cinders from Darling (Winona on the highway), Arizona, on the light duty tracks.

Dave B used it along with sanded grout, so I decide to give it a try with some of the material I've used and mix some cement in. The nice thing about this process is that the ballast/ cement mixture can be spread, and then sprayed with water to activate the cement. It also cleans the ties. I've used water base urethane when I ballasted my display yard, which works very well, but if it's not a matte product, it leaves a shine on the ties. I talked to a paint specialist, and he advised not adding a matte additive to urethane, and the only manufacturer selling matte urethane is Benjamin Moore, and that is oil base. Some day, I'll experiment with adding the matte agent to the water base urethane. For now, I'm going to keep working on the cement/ ballast mixture. 

Don

There is a product called Black Beauty which is used as sand blast grit which sells for about $19 a bag. It comes in a few different sizes of grit, the finest being most appropriate for O gauge. I use it for my coal loads. I mixed a small amount in with the gray ballast I used for my experiment for some color variation. 

Don

Smart.  In the real work, there would be a lot of it that fell off and onto the gravel and got ground in with it by foot and vehicle traffic.