Painting rail and ties after ballast?

Great article Joe!  Definitely easier than what I’ve done in the past.  The painting and weathering is also very helpful.  I’ve bookmarked this for future reference.

Is there a reason for painting the ties and rail after ballasting rather than before?  Seems like you might not need to be as careful with the paintbrush if you did it before.  Does the glue mess up the paint finish?

Yes, after ballasting is deliberate ...

Yes, after ballasting is deliberate. Scrapping stray glued ballast grains off painted rails and ties removes the paint and the process of fixing all the scraped paint is almost as much work as just painting it to begin with.

Also, check out this photo. Notice how the grunge from the rails gets all over the ties and the ballast too. So being messy and getting paint on the ballast and ties can actually be more realistic.

Paint ties after ballasting

The main reason to paint ties after ballasting is: when you use real stone ballast and the finger-smoothing technique that Joe describes, the ballast will exude ultra-fine dust that stains the ties like chalk dust. If you had painted the ties first, this dust will dull and change the color.

I agree that painting the rail first makes more sense to me, but Joe's results speak for themselves.

Results

Thanks Joe- it’s good to know why painting comes after ballasting, that’s another mistake I don’t need to make myself.

Yup, the results look great!  I also like avoiding spraying/airbrushing on the layout.

@ Joe Rock Ballast

Does the Ballast Bond darken rock ballast at all after it's dried?

@Chuck

Chuck,

I bought some Ballast Bond (and a bunch of other stuff) from Deluxe Materials, after reading Joe's comments about this product line.  I have used the Ballast Bond on several sections of ballasted track on my layout, and can report that I didn't notice any change in coloration of the ballast (which, BTW, is AR&M ballast). It came with a very fine and long tip, making application in tight spaces easy, and I left the tip on the upright bottle and it was ready to go next time (a couple of weeks) that I wanted to use the stuff.  No plugging up of the tip. 

I'm also quite happy with Deluxe Materials Plastic Magic (styrene solvent), which has a very nice applicator built into the lid), Roket Card Glue, Liquid Gravity, and Tacky Glue.  I bought, but have yet to try, their Track Magic.

Very happy with this product line, and they sure have a variety of glues and other items we model railroaders can use.

I should mention that I bought most of my Deluxe Materials stuff from U.S. web dealers, like Yankee Dabbler.

Al Carter, Mount Vernon, WA

What an outstanding

What an outstanding article! 

The process described certainly beats the old ballast-with-a-spoon method!

Meh, I'll stick with my

How bout on scenery?

Has anyone tried Ballast Bond on scenery? 

Not here

I haven't. Might be interesting to try given its low surface tension and less need for pre-wetting.

BACKSTORY
I was looking at simplifying and speeding up my ballasting process when I discovered Deluxe Materials had a product -- Ballast Bond (BB) -- that does not require pre-wetting. I found out the BB did not work straight with Woodland Scenics crushed walnut shell ballast (which I have a lot of), so I went looking for a way to lower the BB surface tension further and hit upon mixing it with IPA.

I did check with Deluxe Materials about what IPA might do to the bond, and luckily got the report back that the 1/3rd IPA should not hurt the bond in the least.

But I developed this process totally independent of any vendors, completely on my own simply as a model railroader looking for modern solutions to this age-old modeling necessity. Then I excitedly shared my findings with my fellow modelers, modeler-to-modeler.

Ballast bond?

What is in this stuff? Can we just buy some thing in bulk and mix our own? ....DaveB

What I've tried ...

I've tried mixing white glue with 70% IPA and you just get a gooey mess, so that's not it.

One possibility is Titebond doweling glue, which is billed as a low viscosity white glue. It's available in big buckets for $100+ ...

https://www.amazon.com/Titebond-Doweling-Glue-L-V-Gallon/dp/B00ZGKN8NK

But then someone would need to buy some and test it. But it looks like it's just a special PVA white glue formula, so mixing it with IPA will probably goo it up chemically as well.

Whatever is in Ballast Bond, IPA actually does not hurt the bond chemically, per John Bristow of Deluxe Materials. He told me my use of IPA to further reduce the surface tension of Ballast Bond was actually "chemically brilliant" (said with your best British accent) ... so I got lucky.

Diggin it

I love new techniques and tools. 

Joe please don't argue with the trolls... they’ll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience. Oh and  you kids stay off my lawn !!!  I’m busy out back making buggy whips. 

*sigh*

Such as?? Please enlighten us! 

For somebody who’s been around here for only a few months, you seem to pop off quite a bit (San Francisco NMRA; readers who use snail mail; manufacturer schill).  
Polite suggestion: dial back the attitude a notch. It’s a hobby forum.

@ Al Carter

Thank you for the information on Ballast Bond.  I think I'll try it.

Nothing new

Oh, and in the future please just provide direct links to the vendors' products. We can figure it out from there. Some of us object to doing business with companies such as Amazon.

Can we PLEASE try to avoid being so negative?

Okay, lets take some deeeeeeeeeep breaths... deeeeeeeeep breaths... deeeeeeeeeeeeeeep breaths.

-_-

Okay now.  I noticed things have gotten a little negative over here.  There's nothing wrong with sticking with the methods that have worked out for you, nor is there anything wrong in experimenting and discovering a new method (or an improved variation of an existing one).  But we need to calm down a little bit when it comes to discussions about different kinds of methods.  We don't call it Model Railroad Hobbyist for nothing!  We'd be happy to see all the different methods that people have used in order to accomplish the same/similar goals.  But for petes sake, please don't take the wind out of anyone's sails because of personal preferences for different methods!

Slips of the tongue aren't anything new either, nor is there anything wrong with them... the other day I was trying to say the word "cherish" and ended up with the word "trellish..." a sort of weird cross between "cherish" and "trellace."  We are human beings and don't always know how to say what we mean, don't always manage to say what we mean correctly, and even say more than we mean by mistake from time to time.  It's something that we all have experience with... lets not give others a hard time about it.

And as for the above claims concerning Model Railroad Hobbyists marketing relations,

1) Joe was just trying to be helpful by pointing us to the correct products.  He's just doing his job and trying to make our lives easier by saving us several google searches.

2) So what if most of the pre-made ballesters are made by Bachmann?  I don't see why this merrits the type of heated discussion I've seen above.

3) Model Railroad Hobbyist is FREE.  The only money they directly make from "magazine" sales is from running extra.  Then you add TMTV and the various book and video publications.  Its profit, but its not enough to pay the bills alone.  Advertising is the lifeblood of Model Railroad Hobbyist.  How could Model Railroad Hobbyist survive without business relations of any kind.

4) Who says MRH is keeping it's business relations a secret?  Just check the list of sponsors!  Bachmann is one of them.

5) Business relationships do not always indicate bribery and bias!

And then there is one more important fact that nobody has mentioned on this thread here... Joe has just spent the last week wrangling with a new, unfamiliar computer program (Affinity) and completely recreating the Model Railroad Hobbyist format, had to deal with a crashed computer, and who knows what else!  The MRH staff is considerably smaller than it once was, giving Joe even more work to do than usual.  He's been having to run a business in one of the most financially and socially unstable times in our Nation's history.  These hard times haven't been easy for any of us, but when you consider all the hard work Joe has had to put into this issue, all the hard choices he has had to make for the future, and everything else... its easy to suggest that Joe has learned the true definition of fatigue over this past week.  Lets all try to show some appreciation for all the work Joe Fugate and all the other editors and staff members of Model Railroad Hobbyist have done to bring us this issue!

Joe,Thanks for the article,

Joe,

Thanks for the article, it's well done. I have been using Deluxe Materials products for a while and I really like all of their product line. I see no harm in pointing out a good product when you find one. I have more to say, but it's not worth it.

Lou

Ignore the troll

Caniac’s posts on any thread seem to be almost exclusively negative.  Just ignore him.

This article was a particularly good one in my opinion, with both a way to do ballasting that sounds easier and better than the more traditional methods I’ve used in the past, and a recipe for painting/weathering track that is less messy (no spraying) and judging by the photos produces better results than I’ve gotten in the past.  Unless someone comes up with something even better, I’m going to try this next time I get to that stage of construction.

Ban the Troll

caniac brings nothing of value to this forum. Only thread started by him was a troll message complaining and at the risk of being banned myself, I say dump him. I come here for tips and new to me ideas, even if they are rehashing what "everyone else knows".

As an old curmudgeon, I try very hard not to get ticked off, but behavior like his definitely reaches a trigger point with me.

Accentuate the positive

I'm focusing now on accentuating the positive. Mean-spirited remarks will just get ignored by me going forward and if they continue, we will ban the perpetrator. This is consistent with our forum policy, and by posting here you have agreed to abide by these policies:

https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/posting_guidelines

P.S. AS A REMINDER ...

Every so often we need to repeat this, just so it's clear.

I'm happy to respond to anyone who has a real question / comment. I see banning people as a last resort, but if you will not let up, we will finally ban you. This is like being in our lobby, it's our space and we can escort someone off the premises if they constantly have an axe to grind.

Just be nice. We all make mistakes, myself included. If you've never made a mistake, then start your own forum so you can have a perfect place for just the flawless.

Great article

Really liked this article.  How much track can one bottle of Ballast Bond cover if not diluted?

Thanks,

-Ed

How much coverage?

How much track can one bottle of Ballast Bond cover if not diluted?

I have ballasted about four feet of track and used half the 100ml bottle. That's about 12.5 ml ( 2.5 teaspoons) per foot.

The 100ml bottle cost me $15 on Amazon, so that's about $1.87 per foot.

I have since bought a 500ml refill off Amazon for $21, dropping the price to 53 cents per foot -- a much better deal. That larger bottle will do 40 feet of track.

If you use Woodland Scenics and dilute it with 70% IPA like I do at 2 parts BB to 1 part IPA, then you get another 33% of track from a bottle of BB.

That big refill BB bottle + IPA will do about 53 feet of track.

P.S. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the price of IPA has shot through the roof. It used to be I could get a 32oz bottle of IPA for a dollar. Now it's $10 for the same bottle.

Thanks for the Cost Breakdown

I've got one on order from my local hobbyshop (I prefer giving them what little business I can) and should arrive about the same time as what the Amazon furnished would. Adding already owned IPA makes it feasible for me to keep it cost effective!