How to deal with flakes

[Jesse6669]

Not dandruff, but little shiny flakes of.. ? mica?  granite?  in very fine ballast. 

I'm doing some ballast experimentation in T-scale (1:450) so the very finest ballast is needed, and the best I have has these little shiny flakes in it.   They are the size of scale hand-mirrors..
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 I tried dusting with some grey chalk but I don't want to get rid of the natural ballast color either.  Dullcote didn't seem to work very well.   Any suggestions?
What do the discerning Z-scalers use for ballast?  I have fine N (some of Ed K's grout) and some commercially available "T scale" ballast (they both are around the same size stone actually). 

[Mark W]

What's the source of that test ballast? 
Are the flakes present before the ballast is laid and glued? 

[peteski]

IIRC, @Ed Kapuscinski  uses grout as ballast.  I wonder if that would work well for T scale ballast?

[Jesse6669]

What's the source of that test ballast? 
Are the flakes present before the ballast is laid and glued?

To answer the 2nd question first-- yes the mix has the shiny bits in it prior.

One of the sources is T-Gauge.com (probably the best source of T scale stuff in the world).  It's a very light grey.  The other is (if I have my container labeled correctly) some of Ed K's grout  but I think it may have been mixed with the T-gauge stuff to create a lighter blend (I labelled it B&O blend, and this was a few years ago).. so the T-Gauge commercial stuff may be the root cause.  So the original Ed K. ballast may very well be ok.  I'll need to root around to see if I can find the unadulterated stuff. 

[GhengisKong]

The best I can offer would to find a list of minerals with a hardness of less than 3 on the Mohs scale, find an applicably coloured one, and then have at it with a mortar and pestle to your desired grain size.

[Mark W]

Yeah, sounds like you need to throw out the T-Gauge.com ballast and go with pure grout, or try to DIY your own.

I happen to be in the 3D printing of ties game myself, except I did for Z Scale C40 Flex.


https://i.imgur.com/AkxWvyh.jpg

That part doesn't really apply to T-Gauge ties, but for ballast, I crushed and sifted my own from a 4 dollar 50 pound bag of Garden Slate Rock from The Home Depot.


https://i.imgur.com/fCVNPHN.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/W1T7oj1.jpg

Again, though this is a Z Scaled test block, you could easily sift finer grade ballast from crushed garden slate. And this rock is very easily painted/dyed for a specific color.
Here's some larger grade from the same garden slate dyed a dark grey as fall rock. 


https://i.imgur.com/yu4Kf8O.jpg

[JMaurer1]

It looks like it is a real rock ballast and whatever the rock is, it is some type of rock that has flat shear plates (like mica or salt) and that is what is causing the 'reflections'. Whenever a flat plate is facing the light source it's going to 'reflect' that light. There's no good or easy way to fix this other than using something else since there is always going to be a flat plate somewhere in the mix reflecting the light.

[DKS]

Actually, that "T Gauge" ballast looks like fine sand, which is notorious for having reflective surfaces due to being composed principally of quartz crystals. Definitely ditch that stuff.

[Blazeman]

Thread title threw me for a moment.  Present company excluded.

[peteski]

Thread title threw me for a moment.  Present company excluded.

I had the same thought. 

[eja]

I thought of an early snowfall or some people I used to work with...