Right-of-Way BALLAST

Some folks like baby chicken grit you get from a feed store.  However the absolute best looking ballast comes from forum sponsors like Brennan and Scenic Express.

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Dennis

I agree with Dennis about Brennans and Scenic Express Ballast,I did my layout with Brennans Ballast in two different colors for main line and yards,came out great,not  cheap but realistic.

Mikey

Buy only model RR ballast. It has been sized, graded, cleaned, and freed of magnetic materials for you. Brennans. Woodland Scenics. Check OGR and other mags for ads.

 

Never skimp on cheap or easy substitutes - most look pretty bad, some very bad, and 

putting "chicken grit" (whatever that is) or shingle scrapings (ouch!) under $500 locomotives is risky and ineffective.

     Ken you can go to a stone supply place or an asphalt plant and ask for limestone (DUST). It is 1/4in. size stone down to fine powder. What I did was make a 12in. by 12in. frame out of 1in.x1in. wood and tacked some window screen onto the wooden frame and sifted out the dust. I then got a piece of sheet metal cut it 8in.x8in. bent the 4 sides up 1in. and it makes a 6in. pan with the 1in. sides. I drilled a bunch of 1/8in. holes in the bottom of the pan and resifted the material that had the dust removed. You keep the material that made it through the 1/8in. holes from the 6in. sheet metal pan. After that I ran a magnet through the ballast and took out the magnetic pieces and the rest you dump in your driveway (if it is stone) or take it back to the supply place or the asphalt plant. I ended up with less than half of a 5gal. bucket of good ballast the rest is waste. I was charged $10.00 for a 5gal. bucket so it took me 5-5gal buckets to end up with 2-5gal. buckets of good material to do my old layout for $50.00 and some of my time. I do not know if you want to go through all of this work because it is time consuming but to me the money saved it was worth it. Hope this works out for you if you try it. Take care Choo Choo Kenny

Ken,

 

As D500 stated, purchase only the really good brands of realistic looking ballast, i.e. Brennan's or Woodland Scenics.  Yes, those may not be the cheapest, but they are indeed the best and most realistic looking. The way to save serious money during ballasting, is to first use cheap sand-box sand that has been dried, i.e. spread out among may coffee cans and/or 5 galling buckets.

 

I learned this method from gnnpnut, and sure saves on LOTS of expensive ballast materials. Simply spread a good layer of dried sand-box sand, then carefully spread a thing layout of your preferred ballast over the sand. Moisten liberally with cheap rubbing alcohol, then use diluted Matt Medium (thinned to the consistency of whole milk) to soak the entire area.

Isn't/Wasn't there a brand of rubber ballast at one time?  I've always used Woodland Scenics but the idea of using rubber to hold down noise seems like a good idea.

Never heard of that, but using Matt Medium instead standard old white glue, also helps to reduce noise. The Matt Medium doesn't seems to dry as rock hard as white glue, and thus helps to reduce noise. Also, the Woodland Scenics ballast is ground-up nut shells (walnuts?).

More money does not produce better results, it simply saves work and time. If you are of the build-instead-of-buy persuasion, don't be afraid of home-made approaches. With skill and care the cheapest of materials can produce first-rate results.

Just my opinion but, I disagree when it comes to prototypically appearing O Scale track ballast.

 

The title of the topic evokes a memory of Right of Way industries. Way back they offered ground rubber as ballast. I had picked up a fifty pound box once at one of their open houses. That lasted a very long time. Now I get the same thing from Brummy's in Barberton Ohio. He does different sizes and colors.................Paul

Breenan's is awesome, but pricy.  I use black silica sand about 10 bucks for fifty pounds and looks awesome!  I've had numerous compliments!  I leave the sand alone in places and in other places I put a top layer of Brennan's.  Exactly looks like Breenan's because no one can see a grain of anything below a thin top layer!

I would have had to get a 2nd mortgage on my home to ballast a layout that pretty well fills a 1400 square foot basement.

The best ballast at the most economical price was this stuff I swept up in my street.  Washed and sifted got me three different sizes.

 

Ron

 

 

I've been wanting to take a look at this. It's crushed granite. The size would be the real issue. Five pounds for $6.50 isn't bad and if its the right size, it would definitely beat using painted construction sand.

 

http://www.tractorsupply.com/t...it-5-lb?cm_vc=-10005

Matt, Looks like postage cost more than the product.LOL

Yep. That's why I checked to see if there was a store in my area so I'd be paying about $7 out the door instead of $7 plus $20 postage. I think that brand is available at other places and I know Tractor Supply is in several other states (I was surprised to find so many in So Cal.

Another option. I used them for my N scale layout.

 

http://www.rrscenery.com/

We use Woodland Scenics....3 parts medium gray and one part cinders.

 

 

 

Peter

Matt, I used that chick grit and have been happy with it. Cost about six dollars for five pounds. It comes in the package mostly white in color. I rattle can spray painted it with Rust-Oleum satin granite. Ended up costing about 1.50/ pound. I put flat black sprayed ballast between the rails to give a dirtier look there. No metallic particles. One pound did 3-4 feet of track. Hope this helps.

 

Ed Kazarian

Look at the pictures of real railroads and you will find more different colors, if not types of ballast than you might have thought.

 

With that said use what you like. I don't understand the doom and gloom about Chicken Grit (small). I was very happy with the results and cost on a previous layout in a prior life in a galaxy far far away. With all due respect I found it neither "risky" nor "ineffective".

 

One other thing I'm in the minority on is glueing ballast. I never glued mine and had no issues with the exception of minor clean ups with a small paint brush to straighten up if an errant hand or if a derailment scatters the ballast. Makes it very easy to change track or remove and save for next layout.

 

I'll try and find pictures of my CGC (Chicken Grit Central) - it is nowhere near as nice as Ed's layout above (wow), but it was fun while I had it in Matthews and then Charlotte NC.

 

Paul

 

I agree with Avanti... More money does not always buy you a better product.  There are MANY examples on this forum of members who have made masterpieces out of junk.

 

Here's a challenge for you all.  Spot the commercial ballast vs the home made ballast.  The results are at the end.  Anyone surprised?

 

Ron

 

Ron, that was fun. I liked them all. The chick grit probably isn't a nice as the commercial ballast but I just wanted to try and make my own. I seem to like doing "projects" on the railroad as much, if not more, than running the trains.

 

Ed

I'm so proud of myself for not bringing up kitty litter. 

Pete,

 

I tried that too. Looks fine IMO but it tends to clump after being glued down. Doesn't hold together as well as the stone ballasts.

 

Ed

 

The material I used for the ballast for these tracks is a mixture of sand, gravel, earth and bits of wood. I used a spray bottle with water base urethane finish as the adhesive and binder. The gray ballast in the gondola is made from fine crushed stone which is the same stone used locally for most ballast here in northeast PA. It comes in five gallon bucket sized bags for $5 a bag. This material goes by several names, moon dust, screening, and concrete sand. It is sold in building supply houses, quarries, or other similar places that carry masonry materials. I use a window screen as mentioned above, but for the purpose of making loads, I don't sift out the fine powder. The powder helps cover the edges of the luan I use for the load base. I would screen the fines out for ballast application, if I had a layout. 

Whatever material you use, if you're looking for prototypical, find out what material real RR's in your area use, and try to locate that material at the locations mentioned above. 

Don

I used Woodlands Scenics Medium Gray HO size.  That's all I had in stock at the time.

 

 

Sprayed with wet water, then dripped 60:40 PVA/water (with a drop of detergent) on to it.  I don't like the look of big ballast stones.

I use the chick grit and have had good success.  Just a little warning if you decide to use other than known packaged goods take along a magnet and test the material for metallic stuff in the mix.  We went to buy some play yard sand from a big box store and when I stuck the magnet in it it had a lot of 'fuzz' all over the magnet!    That will definitely cause your railroad to SHORT out!  Poultry and chicken grit is much larger in size that the smaller chick grit, should be available from most pet supply or feed stores.  Russ

 

Brennan's is excellent for color and for size.  A lot of the other options produce rocks the size of scale baseballs -- really too big for close viewing, and if you ever take a photograph on your railroad, then Brennan's will look realistic.

 

Dennis Brennan ships it in bags, using USPS prepaid boxes, and therefore shipping is not as bad as you might have thought.  Those flat rate boxes work in favor of the post office, except when they are full of bags of Brennan's Better Ballast!

Brennan's, hard to beat!

 

Bob

 

 

Brummy's rubber ballast is the best I've used yet. Put the ballast down then spray it with straight alcohol then spray it with 50-50 white glue and water. Ballast comes in about 15 different colors. I don't know if they're still in business but I was fortunate to buy a dealer out of his stock so I'm pretty much set for life on ballast supply. Scenic express also sells rubber ballast in one gallon jugs for $20.00  a jug but I don't know if it's as good as brummy's as far as quality.

 

Brummy's is still in business. I just bought ballast from him at a train show in November. I'm going to buy some more from him at the next train show...........Paul