How to create piles of crushed rock for a layout?

My local dealer used to have a rock crushing machine where he used to make ballast and any other size gravel and stone you wanted - kinda of a crush to order. But your spec's for that won't work.

Have you thought about maybe taking some footing tiles and stripping them? Might be worth the effort to by a single square or contact a local roofing company for scraps? Light weight and many colors.

K

The trick is to form a loose pile (which will look natural, with the correct angle of repose) and then to drip dilute white glue onto the pile, without disturbing it. After it dries, all will be stable. There is a chance that the glue will not soak all the way through, in which case you would end up with a hollow pile, but so what?

The low piles here were done that way:

Thanks for all of the information.  I will try the methods suggested. That's why OGR is the best model railroading forum around! 

How about this idea. Get a plastic funnel, plug the hole, mix plaster and pour in the funnel. When dry, pop out and use your diluted glue mix to stick whatever material you want to make your piles out of.

Has anyone suggested granulated cat litter?  Perhaps some of that chicken grit some people suggest for track ballast?

You could stop on a gravel road and take some siftings of the smallest gravel pieces for your larger stone aggregate...

Even a bag of your favorite gray ballast in multiple sizes (HO, O...maybe multiple colors?)

I think the funnel suggestion would work well for piles that look like they were deposited by a conveyor.

I am considering a new track plan.  The new layout would include a limestone quarry. (well, at least the loading area adjacent to the tracks.)  If you send me your address, I will send you some of the limestone we quarry.  HOWEVER, that may be awhile.  We have to get thru that layer of Homasote and then the plywood before we can even reach the red Oklahoma clay...and we are not known for limestone in our county...it is further east of us about one county...so, maybe nothing?  (And you KNOW how O scale laborers and construction equipment move slow.  Almost as if they are not alive.)

I recently made a pile of gravel, is this what your after?:

Its actually fairly easy to do. First make the base. I cut out a circle of cardboard in the diameter (size) your looking for. on top of that I wadded up some crumpled up paper or paper towels, shaping them into a basic pyramid shape.  Then I cut another circle of paper. With this circle, I cut a slit from the outer edge into the center of the circle. Now fold the two cut edges over each other, overlapping them so that a cone shape is formed. When you get the proper size of the cone, one that will cove the base entirely, glue, staple or tape the two edges together so the come retains its shape. now glue the "cone" over the base.

Once dry, paint the "pile" a generic color. This color will should be the same as or as close to the color of the top (aggregate). In the above example, I used a light grey. After the paint dries, paint the cone with Full strength Elmers or other white glue. Then sprinkle on your aggregate. repeat the glue sprinkle process as necessary to cover the pile entirely. Install on your layout . Sprinkle any additional aggregate around the base to hide any gaps or edges.

Note: the dirt pile in front of the truck was made in a similar manner.

Very Neat !!

Thanks.  Keep the ideas coming!

Just so you know, my idea for the module is to have a spur track running a diagonal across the space (not connected to the two main lines) with an FEC Discharge Hopper placed underneath the aggregate loader (aka 497 Coal).  There will be a yard office on site, the 2-3 small piles of the aforementioned limestone, along with a dump truck.   Very compressed and showing as much as possible without getting too crowded.

I use roofing granules for ballast and it's a great scale O'gauge size. It's cheap, many, many pounds for $20. You could make a cardboard cone as a form. Slather it with white or spray adhesive and stick the first layer to it. Then sift the rest over the top and use the "Wet Water/W-S Scenic Cement method to hold on the rest. You'd be sure that all the material was well adhered.

Hey Kevin,

Have you tried using real stone(rock)?

I've seen some really nice use of various sizes of aggregate.

Depending on the purpose of the rock pile, use the size you like, oh heck make piles of different sizes stone(aggregate).

Typical gravel parking lots are made with various sizes of stone(gravel), some common sizes are 57, 8, screening.

Perhaps you can pick up a handful of different sizes from a parking lot or a driveway and see how they look in a pile on the layout.

Kevin,  if you're trying for conical piles that would have been made by conveyor then Marks idea is probably the easiest.  Since it's a display module and you're not looking for big quantities you would probably want a realistic looking aggregate so I would go with one of the commercially available ballasts (Scenic Express, Brennan's) of the appropriate size and color.

If the piles were deposited by dump truck they wouldn't be perfectly conical, the tops would be flattened by the dump truck gate and may even be elongated for bigger dump trucks that need to move forward to complete the dump. The bottom half of marks foam cone would work.

For piles worked on by a front end loader or bulldozer the piles could be irregular shapes carved out of foam and covered with the aggregate.  The important part would be the angle of repose (slope of sides), just carve a slope that looks good to your eyes.

You might try making a cone shape out of cardboard to the size you need.  One material that I use as granite ballast is Chicken Grit ( the type without any additives) . I get in Tractor Supply $5 for a 5 lb bag.  Give it a good soaking of water/glue mix and it should be good to go. I think it would look very realistic.

Good luck.  I would like to see how you end up doing it.

Thanks,

Ed

Trainman2001 posted:

I use roofing granules for ballast and it's a great scale O'gauge size. It's cheap, many, many pounds for $20. You could make a cardboard cone as a form. Slather it with white or spray adhesive and stick the first layer to it. Then sift the rest over the top and use the "Wet Water/W-S Scenic Cement method to hold on the rest. You'd be sure that all the material was well adhered.

Where does one purchase roofing granules?  I was thinking the size would make great ballast, but the source is a riddle I have yet to solve.

Fine aquarium gravel is a good choice. Available in many colors, and can be dyed using ink/alcohol.

Purchase them at any full-line commercial roofing supply house. That assumes you're living in a metropolitan area that is large enough to have such a business.

Remember, they're slightly magnetic, so if you have MagnaTraction, it don't like it.

Dollar Tree's floral and/or craft department has bags of coarse floral sand that are just about ballast-scale. There are many colors, though they have only one or two in stock at a time. The bigger stuff in black looks like the lump size for stoker firing a steam engine.

Cat litter might work, coarse for bigger ballast or small rip-rap and fine for roads and such. Big chain pet stores usually have it in bulk, so you won't need to buy a big bag. (Even if you have no cat, everyone should have a jug of ultra-cheap unscented clumping litter around. When a human or animal makes any kind of wet mess, or when there's a grease spill, nothing works faster or more thoroughly to contain the problem.) Crystal cat litter is usually too big, but the silica drying packets that come in practically everything are finer-grained and will work for fresh snow or quartz-bearing stone.

If you don't want a whole bag of chicken grit, you may be able to get a smaller box of it from the parakeet and canary section of a pet store.

If you need a very light material for larger rocks or slides, I ran into an oddity the other day. I had several pressed-paper drink carriers melting down for paper mache, and they tear up in layers like a finer version of the old ceiling tile trick. The melted paper mush is an appropriate gray for most rock and small pinches of it, once dry, look like broken stone.

--Becky

I used chicken grit. Not as dusty as cat litter. (also does not attract cats) Rinse it before using. Doesn't need to dry, then hold it in place with a little squeeze of dish soap combined with Elmer's glue 50% and water 50%.