It was time enough to get the ballasting done for Brighton Trafalgar – and the majority of it was achieved over the course of a week or so with a few sessions spread amongst other tasks. The ballast is (so far) exclusively Peco PS-3 Weathered Brown Ballast, which to me rings true for a shingle-based ballast as used on the LBSCR.
I used Future Floor Polish AKA Johnson’s Klear AKA Pledge as a fixative initially – with no need for pre-wetting it was an obvious choice. Running out of that however, i realise there’s not much in the way of a replacement product, so returned to wetting the ballast with IPA/Water and then a pipette of dilute PVA/water/IPA.
One of those things which always disappoints me is quite how radically the ballast changes between application and glue drying – one of the major challenges is how much the ballast gets disturbed no matter how gentle you are, so another layer atop some more thickly applied glue restored the original texture
One of the other major changes is around tone – the slightly satin look of the glue coating on both the ballast and any rail or sleepers. To return this back to a more natural state, a light drybrush of a creamy white is applied with a large brush. This would be further improved with touching up the rail sides in due course.
The following picture was taken earlier in the process, but gives a reasonable impression of how it’s starting to look:
Interlocking 
You must be logged in to post a comment.