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making the track base look nice?


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hi everyone, new to this forum and glad i found it

so i have laid down my track base and its ready to have the actual railway fixed down. however, before i nail down the track i want to put over a cover of hornby gravel or something that looks like ballast because right now it looks ugly and unrealistic.

to give you an idea, its just wooden planks sitting on an embankment of dirt but i want it to look as nice and emmersive as possible. if anybody is familiar with the "great wakering" railway, it has a powder like layer over it that seems to do the trick. this is what i am after.

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does anybody know of anything that looks like ballast/gravel and also is guaranteed to survive outdoors?

thank you. :D

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Hi and welcome to the forum.

I'm not entirely sure what Trevor uses as ballast on his Great Wakering railway. For sure he uses a mix of rubbercrete for the track base but as for ballast, to me that looks to be something else.

In my experience, and that of several others on the forum, getting the right ballasted effect outdoors is something of a challenge. Ballasting the tracks is easy enough, getting the ballast fixed permanently in place is something else altogether. Along with IanR and his Kirkfield and Warmthorpe Railway, I've had some success using floor polish as a fixative but nothing that's lasted more than a few months. I've tried exterior grade PVA glue but that failed miserably at the first sign of rain. Exterior varnish has been suggested but that's not something I have tried myself. I did try a short section of track some years ago using cement and fine sifted sand and it lasted a few months before it began crumbling. Maybe I needed to adjust the mix, perhaps use more cement, or perhaps mix cement powder with actual OO gauge granite ballast. There's lots of methods we could try.

Laying your track on top of shed roofing felt gives an impression of ballasted trackwork and it's weatherproof but it doesn't fill in the spaces between the sleepers and that's really the effect we're looking for isn't it? At the moment, unless someone can come up with a foolproof way, then roofing felt is about as permanent as we can get.

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Welcome to the forum.

I don't think rubbercrete is what you are after - this is something to make your trackbase, but as you already have track down on your planks, you really want ballast. Many people sell ballast for your track, but as you are working out doors, you need to ensure its actual stone ballast you buy - beware - some are not stone ballast - ground Walnut shells Ive heard of and these don't work.

Now, fixing your ballast is another story altogether. I think the concensus of opinion here is that Johnsons "Klear" was the only truly reliable fixative for ballast outside and its not available anymore :!: Someone else maybe able to point you in the direction of a good substitute.

Personally, I will be sticking to Waterproof, builders grade PVA mixed as you would on an indoor layout, with water and washing up liquid. The other thing I found on my old layout was that the ballast needs to be slightly coarser than you would use indoors, as its less likely to get blasted away by the rain :!:

Also, I have heard of people mixing some rapid setting cement into the ballast and then misting water over it to set. Obviously, this will dry hard and is not suitable if you think you may want to make alterations to your track layout or ever want to use the track again.

If you are planning on having points on your layout, the best bet is to keep any ballast well clear, as it will inevitably find its way into the mechanisms and cause you no end of problems.

Iain

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