Garden Railway Forum

As SB said in another topic that he wanted to know what my technique for ballasting was, here it is. I use grano dust that has been sieved to get the small bits out. Then this is mixed in a 1:2 ratio with cement (one part cement to 2 parts grano dust). This is laid dry, using a old paintbrush to get the ballast into place. Then using a spray bottle, spray on water with a bit of outdoor PVA, making sure that all of the ballast is wet, you can tell from the cement. Then just wait for it to harden. I use normal cement but I've heard rapid setting is better for this job.

Thanks for that I shall be using it if I ever get to the ballasting stage .

Have used this method last night, chippings look a bit out of scale but its not bad, shall post pictures later.

I have used here what we call crusher dust its the tailing from when they crush the granit for road base.
by it self it set very hard when wet but by adding cemet becomes solid. the pebles are are fine and make great scale balast

I want my line to look mainline like .

Hmm, it hasn't stuckk that well, probably due to the size of the chippings, have now done it with mortar mix & chippings, much better I'm hoping the sand will darken over time.

Ah, thats probely by my first effort didn't work, I used fishtank gravel that may have been too big. Probebly should of mentioned that my dad sieves the big bits out as well as the small bits, but I thought it didn't make that much difference. My dad does most of the ballasting on my line

Don't worry, I'd rather keep going with this large ballast rather than sepnd money on some finer ones , won't get your effect though.