Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Ballasting, part 2

Not much progress since last, but I have done some more ballasting. When doing that I reached two of the ties which I had weathered to look like new ties, recently replaced. I wanted the ballast around those ties to also look new and fresh. The problem was I did not have any such ballast, suitable for O scale.

Then I thought I should test to do some ballast from what I had at hand. So I took some of the rubble I mentioned in the previous post, the stuff I collected when they where laying the slabs for our patio. It is some kind of crushed rock, of all possible sizes, ranging from dust to pebbles about 1/4 inch. I put some of it in a strainer, like this,



...and sifted it. Everything that could get through the mesh was gone. That left me we just the larger pieces...



...which I then poured into a colander, with holes slightly larger than the holes in the strainer mesh.

  


Shaking the colander made the smallest pebbles fall through and into the bowl below.



Voilá, my O scale ballast of crushed stones!

I applied that ballast, directly from the quarry, around the new ties.



Looking rather good, if I may say so myself.

P.S. The strainer and the colander were taken from the kitchen. Washed after use, with no one the wiser.

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