Time for ballast...

[Dave V]

Count me as one that finds ballasting to be soothing rather than irritating.

That said, on the magnet thing.  Yes, I understand why I should be doing this in theory, although TBH I've gotten lazy this time around.  Don't y'all bond your ballast though?  I glue the ever-livin' sh!t out of my ballast such that you'd need a jackhammer and C4 to ever loosen it.  At that point, the little bit of ferrous materials in the ballast won't be attracted to the motor magnets strongly enough to slip the surly bonds of my ballast cement.  Am I missing something though?

[Angus Shops]

No Dave, I don't think you're missing anything; your words make perfect sense to me. It's just one of those old nuggets of madel railroad lore, like "no 's' curves", and if I hadn't mentioned it there would be about 50,000 posts reminding us all to run the magnet through the ballast.
Geoff

[DKS]

Count me as one that finds ballasting to be soothing rather than irritating.

That said, on the magnet thing.  Yes, I understand why I should be doing this in theory, although TBH I've gotten lazy this time around.  Don't y'all bond your ballast though?  I glue the ever-livin' sh!t out of my ballast such that you'd need a jackhammer and C4 to ever loosen it.  At that point, the little bit of ferrous materials in the ballast won't be attracted to the motor magnets strongly enough to slip the surly bonds of my ballast cement.  Am I missing something though?

Agreed on all points. I find ballasting quite relaxing and enjoyable. And I don't worry about any foreign matter in the ballast, since it's 100% bonded when I'm done with it. There could be steel slugs in there, and it shouldn't bother anything.

[CRL]

I use sifted natural dirt for my ground cover and for decrepit old yard ballast. I don’t magnet sweep it, but I do bake it, not only to kill any biological material, but to be sure it’s powder dry for easier application.

The most glaring omission I see even on well done layouts is the scenery & building aren’t dirty enough.

[tehachapifan]

Count me as one that finds ballasting to be soothing rather than irritating....

Really? I don't like ballast. It's coarse, rough and irritating....and gets everywhere.

[nkalanaga]

Most materials probably don't need the magnet step, as most crushed rock isn't magnetic.  Pasco sand definitely is, and unless you trust your glue to hold every piece for the life of your layout, a magnet would probably be a good idea.

That said, I don't bother with mine, for one simple reason.  I don't use it for ballast!  It's the wrong color for GN's Montana ballast, and for the usual dirt in the area I model.  So, it's used as filler, under other stuff, or as gravel for parking lots and roads.  It's glued very solidly, and anything that is knocked loose won't be under a motor, so I'll take the chance.

While living in Pasco, I collected several ounces of the iron, using an ordinary (1960s) iron-bar magnet.  I still have it, and have never found a use for it.  A modern rare-earth magnet would probably collect a lot more from the same amount of sand.

[Angus Shops]

Thanks too all. State of mind as at Sunday evening:

Batch of beer moved from "cold room" to "train room" on account cold room appears to be too cold to start fermentation. Lesson: everything ends up in train room.

Test of 'sack of sand' is unsatisfactory; the colour is wrong and way too 'salt and peppery'. Local sand is almost all likely to be "Fraser River pump sand", which is brownish, a mix of local basalt (dark) and Quartz (white) with rounded particles. Not good.

Thank you for the current contact for Smith and Sons. Shipping to  Canada will probably be stupid, but the Bride has a post box in Point Roberts (Washington).
Geoff

[DKS]

I use sifted natural dirt for my ground cover and for decrepit old yard ballast. I don’t magnet sweep it, but I do bake it, not only to kill any biological material, but to be sure it’s powder dry for easier application.

Heh, I don't even bother baking it to kill critters. Since I apply alcohol liberally as a wetting agent, I'm pretty confident if anything was alive before, it's dead after.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I am so late to this party, but I swear by sanded grout.

http://conrail1285.com/n-scale-ballast-using-sanded-grout/

[Dave V]

Really? I don't like ballast. It's coarse, rough and irritating....and gets everywhere.

Depends on where you put it...   

[rgengineoiler]

     Just to add to the original post.  My whole layout is HighBall real rock Ballast.  I would not change that for a minute.  When I started this layout after tearing down the old one in 2011 or so I knew from the start that I did not want crushed Walnut shells as ballast and not have to put up with the Walnut shells floating when I fixed the ballast to the track and I wanted the size to look right.  I estimated the amount I would need for the whole layout plan,  including colors and bought the whole amount so everything would match together in the different scenes.  This shipment was very heavy but worth it.  Also I fine sifted every bit of it before using.  I bought Black, Lite Brown, Brown, Lite Grey, Medium Grey, Dark Grey and Pure White, all in extra Fine pure rock.  I extra fine sifted one package of Black to use for Asphalt roads in the 1950's & 1960's and then weathered them with some Bragdon powders.

     Still today as I work on Scenery and more track work or roads I still have my HighBall Ballast colors I need.  I affix with Alcohol or soapy water depending need and 3 to 1 white glue.  The results have always turned out perfect.  I like white Elmers because if later I want to change something all I have to do is spray with soapy water, let sit for half an hour or so and with a putty knife flat scrap it off, let dry and start anew.  Others have said white glue gives a slight sheen but I have not found that to be true with 3 to 1 mix.  The real rock Ballast is rock hard when finished and looks like real rock.  I'll admit in the beginning I searched High and low for sifters fine enough for the purpose's I wanted but finally found them.  After sifting I marked all containers of the different sifted size.  Real rock Ballast just looks so much better than crushed Walnuts and much smaller for N Scale realistic views.  Hope this helps and I know that Arizona Rock and Mineral also has real rock Ballast.   Doug   

[Dave V]

Here's a look at ballast on the RGS in the 1940s.  I may actually have nicer track than the real thing for this era...but it's been a fun break from the razor-edge ballast profile of my former PRR Juniata Division.

Starting at Ridgway, we have weeds, mud, and a little cinder:







Native dirt at Placerville:



A little of everything at Windy Point:



Native dirt and weeds at Gallagher:



Deep cinder at Rico:

[GaryHinshaw]

Smith and Son Ballast is still in business.  The founder (Harley Smith) and his son (Dale Smith) have both died during the last two years. 

I'm delighted to hear that Smith & Sons is still going!  Thank you for sharing that.  Dale passed away about two weeks after he sent me 10 pounds (~1 gallon) of #50 Penn-Ohio limestone.  I was particularly keen to get this particular blend because I had already ballasted the top deck of my layout and I wanted to match it on the lower deck.  Here is a shot that gives a pretty good sense of its size, shape, and colour:



If you're starting from scratch, the other suppliers mentioned here are good sources too (AZRM, Scenery Express, Highball?), but you'll have to try and judge the shape & colour based on marginal catalog photos since mail order is about the only way to get it around here.  (I had mine shipped to Pt. Roberts as well.)

[C855B]

I really appreciate the discussion here, guys. I just started ballasting, or more accurately, fooling around refreshing ballasting techniques both on and off the layout. Mostly off, thank goodness. Whatever I do, it has to be fast, as there is currently around 300 feet of it ahead of me. That has to be where even some of you with "it's relaxing" would descend into "Make it stop! Please!"

The most important concept gleaned from the thread was "check photos". Well, duh.    I originally did this during construction of the first third of the current layout, the Santa Fe leg, using photo references from Southern California to confirm AR&M "Santa Fe Mauve" was right for the region. I did some test swatches, but hadn't yet executed on the layout. Anyway, with that shallow confirmation, I trusted the AR&M labeling of "Union Pacific", which is a medium tan, and started supposedly in earnest a couple of weeks ago.

After a couple of off-layout tests to verify technique, I glued down about two feet to get a sense of the dried appearance on the 30 feet of painted track on the layout. Checked the next day, "This doesn't appear as I remember," too tan and too dark. Get out photos, and sure enough, the tan is wrong for the regions I'm modeling. Not completely wrong, but 1:1 is lighter and with a lot more gray on the eastern portions of the original UP. But completely wrong for the western end, the LA&SL. Now forced to look again, it turns out that AR&M offers a "Union Pacific Gray" very close to the LA&SL color, and probably a good candidate for a 50:50 mix with the tan for the east end.

So there's now a long pause in the action while waiting for bags of gray to arrive. Plus I get to sweep-up about 10 feet of unglued ballast to save, and figure out a way to unglue the on-layout test section without ruining the track. I use thinned matte medium, and that's not going to budge with water (unlike PVA). Maybe alcohol will help, but that will strip the paint. Great.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I hate to say it, but one of my biggest reasons to use grout isn't just the color, or texture, it's that it has a binder in it. So when you spray it with water it stays put enough for you to glue it down.

It has COMPLETELY changed my experience of ballasting for the better. The far better.