Ballasting Woes

[Railbob]

Well that's my layout board back to being bare due to ballasting issues. I used a fine grey ballast from Javis and the usual mix of glue, water and a drop of washing liquid, well despite pretty much soaking the ballast before applying the glue today I had to lift everything off the board due to the ballast being absolutely dry underneath the glued surface.

I think my issue is that the ballast is too fine and will not "accept" the water or adhesive, you could see gaps in the ballast where despite "being " glued the ballast had failed.

I'm now going to have to relay the whole layout and re-ballast it with a much heavier grade of ballast which won't be affected so much by surface tension.

Any advice is most welcome.

Railbob

[P-Henny]

....despite pretty much soaking the ballast before applying the glue....

 

 

I wonder if that was the mistake you made. By saturating the ballast with plain water, the ballast was unable to accept any more liquid that contained the glue. Usually in my experience, it is only necessary to lightly mist the raw ballast before adding the glue mix.

[Railbob]

P-Henry, I used a very fine mist and the ballast just clumped together until it became saturated, it then "took" on the glue. I even washed the ballast to try and see if that had any effect on it clumping but to no avail unfortunately. I'm pretty much convinced that it is too fine and acts like dry sand when you add water.

Railbob

[Rallymatt]

Agree with Paul’s observation, also try IPA (not beer) rather than WUL or a ballast/scenic cement, although I have always had good results with let down PVA. Never got on with Javis products though so don’t know what they are made from, real stone doesn’t always give results you think! Woodland Scenics is crushed walnut shells and always pulls the adhesive in well.

[ntpntpntp]

I never pre-soak nor wet the ballast, I just apply dilute PVA (roughly 60% water, 40% PVA) using a pipette, and let the mix into the ballast from the outside edge and down the side of the rails. Never drop it from above. Let capillary action draw it in. I've never found the need to use any detergent to break surface tension either.

Woodland Scenics fine buff grey or light grey is the stuff I've been using for N gauge since the 1980s and will use the same for TT when I get round to creating a layout. The WS ballast isn't real stone, I believe its dyed and ground up nut husks or similar.

[edit] RM and I must have been typing our replies at the same time :)

[Too Tall]

I am no expert obviously, but I used the WWS ballast glue.

No pre soaking or anything, got ballast in position and just applied the WWS stuff straight on, mine is stuck down only comes off with a scraper when I needed to move some for a scenic item.

Might be worth a try next time for you ?

[Railbob]

Thanks everyone, I’ve got a shopping list made out after your advice and watching some YouTube tutorials. I’m going for the WWScenics medium grey ballast along with their ballast glue, it looks a lot better than my first attempt and a heck of a lot easier to use.

Railbob