Do these work and are they worth it?
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Here's what I use.
That's what I use but looking for something faster
Very funny Joe! 
Several years ago at York my wife purchased an item called "Ballast King" for me. It is a ballast spreader on wheels that you roll down the tracks (with ballast in the reservoir) and the unit dispenses, levels and forms the ballast perfectly. The company use to advertise in OGR but haven't seen them being sold in a few years.
Joe, that was a good one.
Ballast King is still around, but they're pretty pricey.
Dennis LaGrua posted:Several years ago at York my wife purchased an item called "Ballast King" for me. It is a ballast spreader on wheels that you roll down the tracks (with ballast in the reservoir) and the unit dispenses, levels and forms the ballast perfectly. The company use to advertise in OGR but haven't seen them being sold in a few years.
How about this one?
That one is at a price I could live with, I've seen that one before. 
Click on picture to go to site.
Judging from the videos (that Prose photo is very misleading) of the two (Prose vs Ballast King) the Ballast King looks to do a much better job.
For the difference between $25 and $200, it should do a MUCH better job! 
It does look better, but there's still some brushing to do IMO.
How do you avoid getting ballast into the train engine gears without spraying a glue onto the ballast? Then how do you avoid getting spray onto the rails?
You soak the ballast with a 50-50 white glue/water mixture with a bit of alcohol added. You can simply use a track cleaner like Scotchbrite to remove the glue from the top of the rails, it will be transparent on the sides and not an issue. You need a lot more glue/water mixture than you might imagine if you don't want loose ballast!
gunrunnerjohn posted:For the difference between $25 and $200, it should do a MUCH better job!
Yeah, for $200 it should glue it down for you too, but, not near the brushing needed from the $25 version. The Prose photo is very misleading by itself, leaving one to think their ballast is going to be laid down ready for gluing. Watching their video, the results are far from it. Probably better just to use your paint brush method.
JR posted:How do you avoid getting ballast into the train engine gears without spraying a glue onto the ballast? Then how do you avoid getting spray onto the rails?
The best method is to position the dry ballast EXACTLY were you ant it, and how you want it to look. Then moisten sections at a time with cheap 70% alcohol, then using a pipette, carefully flood the whole area with diluted Matte Medium (some folks use thinned white glue). Allow about a day or two to dry/set, and the ballast is then pretty much rock solid, and nothing got on the rails.
Ballast Spreader (dim-witted lackey holding it not included):
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AGHRMatt posted:Ballast Spreader (dim-witted lackey holding it not included):
MAtt,
You're not dim witted!
Don
Gary,
I have the Ballast King car. Gordie and I went in together on it. It works very well. I can let you borrow it and I can bring it up to the Big E.
Al
I bought a Ballast King and I am very glad I did.
To start, I used the brush-only approach, but after a dozen feet or so of my double main, I decided to try the BK. I still do a little tweaking with a brush after the BK does the spreading, but it is very minor. I have spread around 150 lb of ballast and I am almost done. (I have not spread any on the track that is out of sight.)
I bought the ballast from Russ Boersma as well, it is very nice ballast, and the price is right at $2.45/lb, shipped in 5 lb bags.
My process: I spread the ballast, spray it with 75-25 water and alcohol and a couple of drops of detergent. Then I use the 50-50 white Elmers glue and water solution, and pour it on with a squeeze bottle. I never had any success trying to spray the glue-water solution regardless of what brand or type of sprayer I tried. Immediately after spreading the glue I wipe off the top of the rails.
I have had to remove several sections of track to make modifications, and it is not hard to do at all. I simply soak the ballast (a few drops of water goes a long way), wait about five minutes, remove some of the ballast with a putty knife and a screwdriver, and remove the track. I am just about done now with a small expansion, and will post before and after pictures soon.
Alex
Well, technically I use a squeeze bottle to apply the glue, I tried spraying but it didn't work. However, I didn't see a reason to do the alcohol first, might have to try that.
What about the drop or two of dish washing liquid? If alcohol is the substitute I'll go with that.
I have the Ballast King and you have to know how much ballast to put in when you are near switches because you cant shut off the flow of ballast as there is no way to stop the flow of ballast.I find the brush method is very good and about $195 less.
Mikey
superwarp1 posted:What about the drop or two of dish washing liquid? If alcohol is the substitute I'll go with that.
Believe me, the alcohol application works a LOT better.
I met the Ballast King guy at York a few years ago, and suggested he might consider renting the Ballast King - $25 or maybe $50 for a month. If you do not send it back to him he could keep the $250 deposit you would have to put up using your credit card.
What would you do with the Ballast King after you finish with it? I guess it is kind of like those tunnel boring machines - they just leave them down in the ground when the tunnel is completed.
Richard
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We used one of the ballast spreaders when ballasting the club layout they are OK for distributing the ballast, however you still need to do a lot of brush work to get it just right. For the gluing process we went to the 99 cent store and got a bunch of plastic mustard and Catchup squeeze bottles and used red for the wet water-soapy water solution and Yellow for the 50-50 glue mixture.
I do all my ballasting on the 0 with brushes, but I bought one of these cheaper ones in H0 to help on my 0n30. I haven't used it yet. If I do so soon, I'll try to remember to report.
Richard Gonzales posted:
What would you do with the Ballast King after you finish with it?
Richard
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Sell it to the next person
mikey posted:I have the Ballast King and you have to know how much ballast to put in when you are near switches because you cant shut off the flow of ballast as there is no way to stop the flow of ballast.I find the brush method is very good and about $195 less.
Mikey
Right on!
It is better to have too little than too much ballast. If too little, it is easy to just add more ballast BEFORE you lift the BK from the track; this is easy to accomplish. However, if you had too much ballast for the track segment to be covered, you will have some messy picking up to do.
What to do with the BK afterwards?
Yes, you can sell it to you friend at a discount (of course) as I was going to do when I finished ballasting the track I had planned to ballast. Since then, though, I decided to ballast more of the original track (*), and have made two expansions for which I used the BK. I will be using it later today again.
(*) I was not going to ballast track that is out in the open but sort of hidden. However, as soon as you put a video camera on a car, those tracks beg to be ballasted.
Alex
I used the Ballast King and it did a fine job. You still needed to do clean up with a brush but it was faster than doing it with just a brush. It takes a little bit of trial and error to develop a reasonable application technique. Turnouts have to be done with brush. The Ballast King was good on both straight and curve sections between turnouts. I used a squeeze bottle (think ketchup) to apply diluted (2:1) Elmer's glue. With a little care, the use of a squeeze bottle prevented glue from getting on the rails.
I purchased a Ballast King just a few months ago. It now comes with a lever so you can turn off the flow of ballast.
