Model Railway Forum

Hi Guys,

Looking for a bit of advice on ballast, what material is used for ballast cheaply. I will have quite a large layout and ballast is quite pricey. I would like thoughts on crushed pumice and crushed walnut shell (possibly mixed) what grade would it need to be? I model in HO/OO gauge. I would say about 1mm -2mm size for the grade.

Where would I get it? I think that garden centres would be too large of a grade and ground pumice in beauty outlets would be too fine (powder)

Just need your thoughts and advice.

Cheers

Dave

I always use stone type ballast as sold. It goes a long way and doesn’t float when the glue is applied. On my O gauge layout I use OO ballast. When I had an OO layout I used N gauge.
Also when you glue what ever you use in place use a 80/20 mix of water/PVA, it doesn't dry like concrete but more like toffee.

I bought a load of chinchilla sand from Wilkos for mine. As it stands, there is too much dust in it, so I ran it through a very fine sieve first to extract the gritty bits for use on the layout.

Hi Guys,

Took some advice from SteveM, however, I went to pets at home and got this calci sand, to me, it looks about the right size granular at about 1mm. See photo.





Wondering how it will turn out and what are the views of seasoned modellers?

BR

Dave

We all have our own taste when ballasting. If it works for you go for it. You may have started a new trend.

Ian lock wrote: ↑Fri Feb 09, 2024 8:39 pm Why not take a look at Chinchilla "Tiny Friends" Bathing Sand, looks good and cheap.
Ian.

See post #3 from last year.

Steve M wrote: ↑Thu Jun 29, 2023 5:05 pm I bought a load of chinchilla sand from Wilkos for mine. As it stands, there is too much dust in it, so I ran it through a very fine sieve first to extract the gritty bits for use on the layout.

Quick question, how fine was the sieve? standard kitchen one, or something else?

Stese wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2024 10:50 am

Steve M wrote: ↑Thu Jun 29, 2023 5:05 pm I bought a load of chinchilla sand from Wilkos for mine. As it stands, there is too much dust in it, so I ran it through a very fine sieve first to extract the gritty bits for use on the layout.

Quick question, how fine was the sieve? standard kitchen one, or something else?

A very cheap tea strainer

OK, thanks