Ashes to Ashes...

My first posting in a while and my first with pictures for even longer! To me ballasting = procrastination and I have taken far longer to ballast the layout than intended. It really is a boring job and it was easy to find an excuse to walk the dog, go to the pub, watch telly, anything in fact to avoid the dreaded 'B' word! However a layout can all to easily be let down by poor ballasting so I had to get it right.

Having used steel rail and card-clad foamcore boards I was not happy about the 'put your ballast on dry and then soak it' approach. I therefore determined to use a quick drying adhesive and to apply the ballast on top of it. This was done in a centrally heated room to ensure the moisture had little chance to soak into the foamcore or rust the rails.


The North Eastern Railway commonly used ash ballast on its secondary lines, branch lines and sidings. This was perpetuated by the LNER and BR-North Eastern Region. Niddbeck Bridge therefore had to have a representation of ash ballast. For several years I have been experimenting with various proprietry brands of ballast. I eventually settled on a 50/50 mix of Woodland Scenics Fine Cinders and Busch fine black quartz sand, mixed in a large pudding basin with a balloon whisk (Mrs S went ape-shite - do not try doing this at your home!). This gives a satisfying dark, fine finish that I find pleasing to the eye (the pictures here show it quite a bit lighter than it really is. Real ash ballast can of course take on various hues, for instance when it is wet it appears much darker than when dry. It was the dark, damp look I was after and I'm fairly happy so far.


This is the adhesive I used, DeLuxe Materials 'Super 'Phatic', which is an aliphatic resin woodworking glue. It looks like a white PVA glue but is thinner, has a bluish tint and dries quicker. I built my foamcore baseboards with it and also laid my track with it. This particular size comes with a hypo needle applicator (see below)


The tool at the top is a stainless dental type probe, purchased from Squires. I have modified one end to the shape shown (flat straight base with slight upturn at the end). The point has been blunted using a tool stone. I found this shape ideal for moving the aliphatic adhesive around between the sleepers and point timbering, and for working it under the rail. The flat straight base allows the adhesive to be worked into a neat straight shoulder with ease.

The tool at the bottom is the hypo needle applicator for the adhesive. As supplied, although very small bored, it does deliver too much glue at once, so I have gently squeezed and flared the tip in a vice, to the point where the tip of a scalpel blade will just fit in. This reduces the flow to a nice level. Care must be taken to clean the nozzle under a running tap frequently or it will block. 5 minutes is about all I could risk in a warm room. Blow it through to check it is clear before putting it away! A few spare applicators come in handy (via the Deluxe Materials online store).


My ballast application tool - the spoon end of a Tamiya paint tool. This allows small precise loads of ballast to be placed accurately.

The spatula end of the same Tamiya paint spatula/spoon. It is easy to dip this into a jam jar full of ballast mix and balance a 25-30mm long load on it. It is then moved to the location required, parallel to the rail, and tipped onto the adhesive.


This shows the aliphatic adhesive applied from the bottle using the modified hypo applicator. It is easy to work between the sleepers and point timbering with the hypo applicator.

This shot shows the glue evenly spread around the sleepers and up to to the shoulder mark, using the shaped probe tool. The arrow is to remind me where the uncoupling magnet is located!

This shot shows the ballast tipped/spooned onto the wet adhesive using the Tamiya paint spatula/spoon, to the point where no adhesive moisture can be see through the loose ballast. At this stage it is lightly tamped down with a finger tip and left to dry.

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This shot is taken about 30 minutes later, after the adhesive has dried. The surplus is simply vacuumed away (the whole layout has only consumed about 1/3 of a jam jar of ballast mix - hardly worth the effort of trying to recycle the hoovered up surplus). A scrub with an old toothbrush follows to remove the less then well glued grains. Any patches that are a bit light simply get a further local applicaton of adhesive and ballast.

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The track and ballast will need a gentle airbrushing with a matt varnish and dirty thinners mix in due course, to take the 'new' look off it. I will apply the other scenic dressings to the layout before doing this, so it can all be blended in nicely.

And Now, A Brief Intermission...

Yesterday Edward came across and we painted the backscene for Niddbeck Bridge. This was done in a very similar way to the backscene for Masham; watercolour on fairly textured watercolour paper. The results are shown below blu-tacked to the backscene board; Edward proposes sticking them with spray mount in due course. They may require a very little trimming here and there to get a good fit. A relaxing few hours work in the afternoon, we were then joined by Sue and Fiona for a rather nice curry.

Lay It All Out

Progress on the Challenge Layout:

i. Here is the basic plan for "Brafferton". The yard lines aren't sketched in yet, but I've incorporated that into the subsequent 3D model. Ultimately the layout will be circular, but to meet the Challenge Rules I've restricted the staging to keep the overall area within 9.42 sqft.

ii. I spent a day or so making a 1/8th scale 3D model to get a better understanding of how the layout might look. The "baseboards" actually represent how the real ones will be constructed.

iii. When modelling, I often do little doodles as below. These aren't necessarily accurate or used in the actual model making. However I use them as inspiration and to get ideas bouncing around.

Still Progressing

Well, Christmas came and went and some progress was made on Niddbeck Bridge, but not as much as I'd hoped. I'm clearly not as disciplined as Tony for the port and single malt somehow always came first!

Most time was expended painting the various structures constructed from dressed stone plasticard. Getting the stone base colour (Humbrol enamel) on was easy enough but then building up on that to give the effect I was looking for was not easy. I wanted that typical industrial north of England dark, sooty, grimy look that was prevalent before the Clean Air Act and 'smokeless' zones came into effect in the 60's. There are not many examples left to see for real. Most buildings and structures have been sandblasted or have had 40-odd years of acid rain and traffic fumes eating the soot away! You can still find examples in sheltered, hidden corners if you look hard enough. I did get there in the end, though I'm not 100% happy with it. I will have to do a better job on the big layout! A topic for the Group to cover during 2008 perhaps?

The platform, bridge and tunnel are now glued in place and a start has been made on the ballasting. This is typical NER/LNER secondary line ash ballast. I experimented with various proprietry dressings and finally settled on a 50/50 mix of Woodland Scenics fine cinders ballast and Busch fine black quartz sand. In due course it will be toned down and blended in by wafting on some highly thinned weathering 'gunge' via airbrush.

In the coming weeks the landform will be added using 'Kingspan' dense insulation foam offcuts scrounged from the skips on the building site on which I live. This will be finished off using an ultra light decorators filler called 'One Strike', a brand we sell at work. Polyfilla do something very similar at twice the price. Once the landform is in place the backscene can be done and I'm still hoping that the Chief Executive of Scorton Village Stores Plc can lend a hand here!

Another job done over the holiday was to put together a test etch of a class 20 diesel cab that Bob has done for me. It went together and looks well but a moment of careless inattention led to irreparable damage to my Farish diecast body. The project is currently stalled pending acquisition of a spare body (and the return of the wheels from Gordon Solloway).

I am finally getting some camera time on the DSLR purchased 4 months ago and Santa bought me a diddy table top tripod for Christmas. Now waiting for delivery of a new and faster card reader then I will start posting pictures on here again.

My new duties as Association Publicity Officer are also mopping up some time. I have quite an exciting project running which will hopefully receive final committee approval soon. All will be revealed via the Magazine in due course!

And Now For Something Completely Different

Mmmm. Definitely all quiet on the North Eastern front. What about all you chaps who said you could post something now you've moved house/done the ironing/walked the dog (delete as appropriate)?





Anyhow. I've been mainly busy with the American N Scale; getting James doing some scenic work etc. As I've no current 2mm layout, I installed a 2mm test track at the front of the N layout. It seemed a good idea to scenicise this somewhat, delineate it from the N Scale and give a backdrop for any photos I might want to take. I'd been playing with the Scalescene printed papers on the American layout with some success and now I've adapted the concrete retaining wall for use with the 2mm track. The results are reasonable and it was nice to work with printed paper and card again. I'm interested as to the durability of inkjet printed papers; we'll see how these stand up.





The N8 was finally finished and I'm pleased I entered it at the AGM. Whilst it was always going to struggle against Bob's exquisite 9F, I feel it performed well on the day and acquitted itself with dignity. If anything the weathering lets the loco down; this was the last minute rush following the lining nightmare and when viewed in bright light, it looks a bit overdone/heavyhanded. I might revisit and repaint the N8 at some point, but now I'm back concentrating on the D49 locowise so it must wait...





A couple of photos showing the loco and the wall:

And one of just the wall: