I have had several inquiries as to how I do my ballasting so I thought I would do up a special request post giving away all my ballasting secrets. It is really quite simple but takes a few days in between waiting for the glue to dry but looks great.

I start out by roughly marking where the building will be located on paper I taped to the wall. This two second task will save all the glue spray and coloring from recking my nice sky blue walls. I spray the area around the building with watered down white glue and sift on the ground color. I don’t spend a lot of time on this step as this only hides the painted brown plaster and will be detailed later.

I then position the building in its place and apply a few drops of white glue to secure it to the layout. I use a small framing square to make sure the building is square and not tilted in or out. I have a small block of wood holding it in place until the glue dries. Now we wait….

Now that the glue has dried I sprinkle on some sand that I stained darker to simulate earth to surround the building. Again I don’t spend a lot of time on this step as it is only to create a base and will be detailed later.

(more…)

Here are some images finally of Gainesville with the ground cover and the mainline and siding ballasted and detailed. The industrial spurs are still needing some finishing up. I have completed the brewery and left spaces where the other buildings will go once done.

This is the west end of Gainesville heading to the off line staging yard through the tunnel port. The pockets on the facial board are for the six tracks in the staging yard. This will be used when operation gets started and a way for me to see what tracks are unoccupied. You will notice that there are signal lights on top of the portal signifying which route is set in the staging yard.

The next series of images are of an overview of the town and some of the detail I have completed. Keep in mind that there is several buildings, telephone poles, people, cars, junk piles, crates, trees, etc… missing. I will also be installing a small water tower and will need to complete the ballasting and rail painting before this town will be considered complete. Even then I am sure I will find other small details to make the scenes more realistic like the family of elk roaming around near the track. Can you spot them. The key is to not over do it. I will remove the paper on the wall once I have completed the scenery in this area as it is only to protect the sky blue painted walls. These pictures also show just how much of a difference painted rails look over non painted rails.

(more…)