Ballast size

[Matthyro]

I don't know what you all do but once spread, I spray ballast with water with a drop of dish soap in it. Then I flood the ballast with a 50 50 mix of white glue and water. When dry, I vacuum off any remaining loose stuff. The ballast looks natural but is rock hard with the glue. I know there is some iron oxide in my ballast but it goes nowhere when glued in place. No problems with my locos.

 

[ezdays]

Originally posted by Matthyro
I don't know what you all do but once spread, I spray ballast with water with a drop of dish soap in it. Then I flood the ballast with a 50 50 mix of white glue and water. When dry, I vacuum off any remaining loose stuff. The ballast looks natural but is rock hard with the glue. I know there is some iron oxide in my ballast but it goes nowhere when glued in place. No problems with my locos.

That has been my only concern. The iron oxide is not conductive to where it would cause a short, just that any loose grains might be attracted to the magnets in the engines. Maybe I'm just being overly paranoid since gluing the balast down is essential anyway....

Don

 

[Greg Elems]

If you want a fine sand for ballast, go to a Toys R Us store and by their child sand box sand. It is cleaned and very fine grained and should have no iron in it. If you are not sure, run a magnet through it and see what comes out. The stuff we bought several years ago was iron free and white. If you are painting it, the color doesn't matter. As an aside, one of the projects I had to keep my boys busy one summer was to go to the park and sift sand. The fine stuff was brought home and then they took a magnet and removed all the iron that was in the sand. After that, we rinsed it till it was free of dirt. Once it was dried, we spread it on the track and glued it down with diluted white glue. I used it on a S scale layout and it looked fine. Sure kept the kids busy too.

Greg Elems