Page 1 of 1

cheap ballast?

Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2015 9:18 pm
by Roberts wood light railwa
my line is desperate for some ballast but what can i use and how can i keep it in place? my line is on breeze blocks but needs something to look like ballast so what do you all use and is it cheep?
thanks in advance

Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2015 10:33 pm
by Peter Butler
I use horticultural grit available at any garden centre. Some of it is overscale but if you are willing to spend a little time sieving it there will be plenty in one bag to cover your railway.
One large bag will only cost about £4.00.
If you read my thread....' Time to build a railway' etc. in the' Railways and Layouts' section, I explain how I stuck my ballast down to prevent it either washing away or derailing my stock. It has now been in place for more than a year and has withstood rain and snow.
Good luck and let us know what you decide to do.

Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2015 5:35 am
by Roberts wood light railwa
cheers for the info. i have had a flick through but cant find the info i need about how its held down, can you tell me on this thread please? cheers

Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2015 9:06 pm
by Peter Butler
It's all there but to save you reading all the way through it, the adhesive I use is called SBR which is in liquid form about the consistency of milk. It is an additive which is commonly used in screeding. It is a water based, flexible liquid which acts as an adhesive to agregates. You can find suppliers on ebay who offer 5ltrs for less than £20.00 with free delivery. This will be more than enough for your needs if used as suggested on my thread.

Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2015 9:51 pm
by TTHLRMatt
Any small grit or sand (I use sand) mixed 2/1 with cement works well. From my experience, the sand has to be a little damp to be spread easily, so leave it outside overnight. Once down, get a fine spray bottle (B&Q) and spray the ballast with water and a little washing up liquid. After two days, it sets fairly solid but can be a bit delicate.

Re: cheap ballast??????

Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2017 10:21 pm
by Soar Valley Light
Evening all,

Now that the CFLR is the proud owner of some track thoughts are turning to ballasting and suitable materials for the purpose. I've read some interesting suggestions here, it seems to me that choices are somewhat limited if a stone ballast is required and if scale size is important. Sieving horticultural grit strikes me as the most practical solution but is likely to be time consuming for the whole railway.

Size? Hmm, there's a good point. Ballast size has varied over the years. Stone ballast seems to have come slowly into general use, many lines persisting with ash (or crushed blast furnace slag in the case of the LNER). Many companies used more than one material, sourced locally to keep costs down. (They were as cash strapped as us modellers it would seem!). In the days of manual track construction and maintenance ballast size tended to be a little smaller, 1" - 2" seems common. Now, ash had been used for years, probably because it was relatively cheap. Even the best narrow gauge railways seem to have managed with either ash or local stone. Stone sourced locally was probably subjected to less stringent quality control (if any!) and consequently a high proportion of fines tended to be present. The end result often had the appearance and properties of ash ballast.

So, having spent hours searching for a suitable sized supply of stone chippings or grit I began to consider what was available that looked like ash ballast. I've come across Iron Silicate. It looks relatively cheap and is available in graded sizes that are suitable - and it's black!. Does any have any experience of using this material please?

Andrew

Re: cheep ballast??????

Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2017 11:01 pm
by MDLR
You said:
So, having spent hours searching for a suitable sized supply of stone chippings or grit I began to consider what was available that looked like ash ballast.
You are not far from Loughborough, where they have piles of smokebox char which would make perfect ash ballast! I'm going to be fetching a bag or two from Butterley, just up the road, for my next railway.

Re: cheep ballast??????

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2017 1:45 pm
by Peter Butler
It has been two years since my addition to this thread told of my use of horticultural grit bonded in place with SBR. Since then I have explained elsewhere that it didn't work out as well as expected and has now been removed and replaced with another material. I found that the grit was too large to be held in place as any material has to be completely coated with the SBR to hold position.
My current preference is a fine grit available from builders merchants, although I can't offer a name as it was gifted to me and I have no idea what it is called. However, it is a medium grey colour and is graded from 1.5mm (approx) to dust and is perfect for both adhesion and appearance.
It is important to cover the ballast once in place to allow it to set. I try to protect against rain for a minimum of 5 days, even so it will show discolouration if it gets wet but stays in place.
This shows my latest area of ballast which, as you can see, is soaked in neat SBR and is currently under tarpaulin to set.
IMG_4724.JPG
IMG_4724.JPG (164.28 KiB) Viewed 6349 times

Re: cheep ballast??????

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2017 8:55 pm
by Soar Valley Light
Hi Brian,

Now why didn't I think of that?! :oops: I was late turn Signalman at Loughborough on Saturday last and sat there watching them dispose of an 8F, even going down to encourage them to buck up so I could nip over the road for my fish and chips whilst there was a gap in the service. It still never dawned! :roll: I'll investigate that possibility further.

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the information. I've read your thread at length about this and I definitely intend to follow your method of fixing the material. The information about material size is very interesting and very useful. I hope to have some progress to share on the subject sometime soon.

TTFN

Andrew