Ballasting (2)

At last, I think I'm getting somewhere.

I've been struggling and getting very frustrated with ballasting this small length of track. Basically the ballast has not been sticking. When trying to add more ballast to repair / fill in the gaps, it's become too bulking. I have not been getting it right at all. My aim was to ballast the track so that the sleepers were not buried, but the thickness of sleepers only gives me approximately one layer of ballast grains to achieve this. The problem I was having is that with a thin layer of ballast I could see the white of the track bead coming though making the ballast look too thin (which is is). Question; how do I add depth to this thin layer?

What a mess

Cannot see very well in this photo but, along with the big gaps, there are small white gaps that are causing me the problems.

I don't know why I should be having these problems and I haven't seen any railway article with my solution but I doubt it is original. It has been born out of my wargaming experience. To add depth to painted miniatures, buildings and vehicles I use a black undercoat. This helps to create shadows and brings out the relief of the castings. Could I use this idea to add depth to a thin layer of ballast?

First trial - Much better

I think it has worked. When view from above there is no white showing though. Any small gaps between the grains is black which is creating depth / shadows. Next step is to see if I can repeat this over a longer length.

Not only a much neater result, as I not putting so much glue down, but no small white gaps.

Result

To me the last photo looks near perfect. A permanent way gang might be pleased with that. The ballast seems flat and no unsightly lumps, and the sleepers are slightly proud of the ballast.

I now need to decide whether I paint/spray the chairs and rail before I glue them to the sleepers of after glueing. Decisions, decisions.

Ballasting (1)

This is what I used to like about this hobby, there's always some challenge at each stage. I would never have thought ballasting track would have been one of them though. Many of you out there will no doubt be asking "what am I playing at". Even though I've been a railway modeller in the past it was so long ago that I am realising I've got to consider myself a complete beginner. Learning again from scratch all over again.

I've been hanging on to a length of kitchen cupboard beading for years thinking it would make an ideal mount for a display. A rummage thought the garage and out it came. Glue some track to it ballast it and way I go. Sounds simple and I suppose it would have been if I'd purchase some nice P4 flexi track. Why do I do things the hard way?

I've also met with my local ScaleFour Group recently and they suggested using balsa wood as a track base. Cork would have been my first choice but apparently balsa is better than cork for acoustic qualities and deadening sound transmission through to baseboard. Not really necessary for this first metre but start as I mean to go on. So a quick purchase of balsa which was glued to the beading board, a metre length of straight track printed from Templot glued to the balsa and away I go.

I took Ian Rice's advice and decided to ballast the track before gluing chairs and rail in place. Quickly realised that without the punch holes or rivets in the sleepers I would loose the position of rail centres. Plan is to lay sleepers in batches and lightly pencil in rail centres onto sleepers as I go along.

First attempt and not happy..... ballast was lightly tamped down and left over night. When excess was tipped off (not brushed nor scraped) I was left with the above mess. Was this too much to do in one go? Was the glue going off? Was the glue not wet enough? Was the glue not thick enough (in depth)? Should I have added a drop of washing-up liquid?

Second attempt and getter better, reduced the quantity of sleepers laid in one go to four so glue will not go off so quickly but it is still not as good as I expected. But the glue should not be going off in such a short time, must be quantity of glue.

That's better... at least I have covered all the paper in this last attempt. This was just by putting a little more glue down, looked to be too much as it was starting to obscure the sleeper positions.

Onwards and upwards ..... just the thick end of a metre to go and I can start glueing chairs and rail.

Making a start

At last I feel like I have made a start. Purchased some plywood sleepers and chairs along with P4 gauges from the EMGS. These arrived a few days ago. My intention is to trial gluing the plastic chairs to wooden sleepers.... I can hear the comments already....

First trials indicate that MEK does not give a strong enough bond, but Butonone and Super Glue seem to. Using the finger and nail test I cannot shift the chairs once the bond has taken. So I'm going to build a yard of track and see how I fair.

Next task, cutting the plywood into 34mm sleeper lengths. It was here when I asked myself, "why didn't I purchase the ready cut lengths?" My thought was that if using glue as the main bond I didn't want he pre-punched hole reducing the surface area for the bond. I can see that this task is one for a evening when I'm brain dead.

Next task staining. I'd moved downstairs and and tackle this first thing in the morning in daylight hence the change in lighting in the above photo. I've followed one of Iain Rice's techniques, using a mix of water, isopropyl alcohol, and india ink. After a few trials I've ended up with a mix of 100ml of water, 50ml of isopropyl alcohol, 4ml of black india ink and 5ml of sepia india ink. I was trying to match the colour of sleepers in colour photograph of Bodmin North. At the moment they look close to the colour I'm after. No doubt once I've laid and ballasted the track the colour will look different , for better or worse I will have to wait and see.

Next stage, my first yard of track. Lets hope the chairs will stick to the stained sleepers. More postings will follow.