Ballasting!
Since the last update, some progress has been made, albeit at a slower pace than I'd planned! The point rodding is now a rather fetching vermilion colour, it will need a little judicious weathering as its a bit "in your face" at the moment! I've also made a start on the ballasting and installed one of two ground signals. Ballasting is one of those tedious jobs that I find you have to be in the right mood for! This is my first 7mm scale layout and I definitely found ballasting this scale far more enjoyable than on my previous 4mm layouts. I'm not a fan of using real stone for ballasting, it always seems to take on a greenish tinge once I apply PVA glue to hold it in position. Woodland Scenics ballast is made from ground up nut shells and to my eye looks pretty convincing and doesn't appear to change colour with the application of glue.
I want to have a visual contrast between the main running lines and the sidings, so differing materials will be used for each. The main and loop will be ballasted in a representation of stone ballast, but the sidings will be laid in ash. I want the private siding to look fairly poorly maintained with grass and weeds growing liberally through the ballast.
The scenic part of the layout splits into 3 sections, so initially I thought i would need to separate the boards and ballast each one individually. In past layouts this has lead to a very visible join in the ballast at each board junction which was hard to hide. This time I simply opened the gap between the boards by a couple of millimetres and slid in a sheet of 10 thou Slaters Plastikard. Once the sheet was in position the base boards were tightened back together clamping the plastic card in situ. As PVA glue only works on porous surfaces, I reasoned that once the glue used to hold the ballast in position had set I could simply prise the boards apart and get a perfectly crisp junction.
Ballast was poured around the sleepers in the usual manner and then teased into position using a small paint brush. Water was then misted over the surface of the ballast and trackwork to ensure that when the glue was applied it would penetrate by capillary action throughout the ballast. The usual PVA/Water/drop of washing up liqiud mix was applied to the ballast using a eyedropper.
Plasticard barrier in position, ballast flooded in PVA/Water mix
Once the glue had fully set I used a wide bladed screw driver to lever the boards apart. I'm pleased and a little relieved to say that the plasticard formed a perfect barrier and the boards separated easily with a nice straight line!
Overall view of ballasted main and loop
View up the line towards the road bridge
View to end of terminus
Close up of crossing
Rotating point indicator at end of loop
Chief Ganger Albert Cruickshank and his team posing alongside the freshly ballasted mainline
Ballasting the sidings is the next big project and then the installation of the last ground signal. I'm hoping to find some decent buffer stops at Telford in September, which should see the trackwork more or less complete. A bit of weathering and blending is needed to tone down the colours, which I'll do using my airbrush. Once that's been achieved I can finally make a start on the scenery, which if I'm honest is the bit of modelling I enjoy the most :-)
Best wishes
Dave
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