First post here. I've been away from the hobby for around 15 years. I'm jumped back in again about 6 weeks ago and layout 4 is well underway and it is my first go at z scale. I decided to go with Rokuhan for track. Their self contained, nonobtrusive swith machine design was a big part of that decision. All in all I find the Rokuhan stuff a dream to work with and I've never been a sectional track user. I made my first mistake with one of these little gems by using carpenters glue to tack the track into place. Dumb move. Despite changing the switch to non power routing, I lost sight of the fact that these turnouts will wick that thin glue straight into the machine parts locking them up tight as a drum......duh no more wood glue. I'm planning on DAP now. I spent 2 hours in the operating room cleaning the dried glue out of the switch parts and got it functioning again. Nice part is that I sure have a pretty good felling for the machine innards now! The problem. I'm trying to figure out now is ballasting and weathering the turnouts. I'm quite sure that I'll end up in exactly the same mess if I go with the standard method of wetting the ballast with isopropyl alcohol followed by scenic cement/matte medium that I've used many times. I'll use that appoach on the regular track but I was wondering how you Rokuhan users are ballasting your turnouts without damaging the internal switch mechanism? Thx, Tim
Tim, Welcome back to the hobby and to Z. I haven't come up with a sure fire ballasting or weathering technique yet, but I'll give you what I've done so far. First it's good to cover the bottom of the turnouts with an adhesive tape. I used clear packing tape. I've not come up with a ballasting technique I like. IMO attaching the gravel to the plastic roadbed using the usual methods leaves the roadbed too rough and uneven. Instead I'm developing a weathering technique. After cleaning the roadbed (there always seems to be some oily mold release left on it), I'm using a wash on 6-10:1 isopropyl alcohol and black or brown India ink. I vary the color and concentration as I go along. This fills the cracks and emphasizes the roadbed texture and also provides some color variation to the ties. Then I dry brush similar shades of grey on the surface to vary the rock color. I've also used some weathering powders but you go through them really fast. I'm attaching some gravel at the base of the roadbed of the track (not the turnouts) brushing a thinned white glue. I weather the rails and if I'm working on a section where the ties are viewed, I'll dry brush some of the ties with a grimy black and airbrush a think line of oily black down the center between the rails. I'm not quite satisfied with the results so this is still a work a work in progress for me as well, so I'm anxious to get opinions. Hope this helps, Mark
I am curious to see what others are doing as well. I'm still in "planning my attack" stage too. I've pretty much just chalked it up to...."turnouts are just gonna take me a ridiculously long time to get them to look like I want them to while maintaining funtionality," and go from there. I'm still pondering what adhesive to use to glue the track down. (to foam) I'm not gluing the turnouts down at all but adjacent tracks yes. Top two candidates are white glue and foam-compat DAP.
For gluing the track down i used a combination of white glue and Foam Tack, Foam Tack in area's near turnouts and white glue for the rest. The foam tack stays flexible and lets the track move a little to accommodate expansion do to temperature changes. For ballasting marklin turnouts i dilute a little foam tack with distilled water 50/50 on a piece of wax paper then dump a little ballast into it and mix it together. once the ballast is covered in glue i let it sit a little till its tackey (not runny) using tweezers i place it a few grains at a time between the ties and along the edges of the turnouts. while its still tacky i dump a little more dry ballast on the tacky stuff and let it dry. The next day i lightly brush and vacuum any loos ballast away. It takes me several applications and a fair amount of time to get it where i want it but the ballast stays in place and does not gum up the turnouts. All though i haven't tried it with Rokuhan turnouts i don't see any reason it would not work with them too. David
Like Mark said tape the bottom up to seal it. I then run a fine bead of caulking compound along the edge of the turnout and smooth it with my finger. I followup with undiluted white glue brushed partially up the sides of the plastic and add ballast. I do not use diluted glue anywhere near the points and mechanism. I learned that the hard way too. One thing I would stress is to test your turnouts first. I have had a few that the points and inner switch lag and short when thrown. Better to fix or replace before mounting.
I've been using the double sided foam tape (I promise 3 times no brand name). I fill the underside of the roadbed between the lateral braces and use a wallpaper seam roller to press them in place. I don't use it under the turnouts. People have criticized this method, but I have MTL track that as been stuck down since 2010 or so and Rokuhan for 3 years (and some wall mirrors for 30 years) with no indication of deterioration. Besides once I glue a bit of gravel to the roadbed, it doesn't seem to make a difference. Mark
Thanks for all the feedback. Since posting the question and then getting back to trainboard to read them, I've been playing with a turnout and straight section. I started with the straight section as to just get the feel of working with the diminuative nature of the track, particularly the fine tie pitch and small difference the depth of the roadbed and the tops of the ties. I'm certainly not complaining that Rokuhans the tie spacing is wider than the prototype as the smallest track I'd ballasted in the past was HOn3! I secured the track with Alex Fast Dry, water cleanup Actrylic Latex DAP. When it was dry to the touch I feathered a bead of it to the interface of the Rokuhan roadbed and foam subroadbed and let it dry overnight. Next morning I laid down a coat of Aleenes (1:1 with water), fast dry tacky art glue down for the final seal and added adherence. As descibed in one reply it too is flexible and allows for that expansion while still giving bond that isn't leaving until I slice the track off with a long bladed utility knife. Up next I made my first attempt at micro-ballasting. I had bought three shakers of of various shades Wooodland Scenics "fine" ballast. It was a waste of $35. Their fine is not fine to Z Scale. The grain size could be used to build a scale rock wall! I had some old Bob's Ballast (fine) laying around from the 80-90s and it was perfect in size. Too bad Bob's is long gone. I have read very good things about Arizona Rock and Mineral and will give them a try. Touchy but got the hang of spreading it pretty quickly. I then applied 70% IPA wetting agent followed with WS Scenery Cement. Again small size of the ballast will wash it away if I deluge the track with too much the thinned matte medium from WS. Trickling the wetter and over the top of the outer ties. This worked well but again the technique took a little practice to not have the ballast wash away. I repeated with the IPA at the bottom of the ballast and let it wick through all of the ballast completely. I repeated this with the cement, both top and bottom. Learning experience..... Patience is a required virtue. Trying to remove from unwanted areas or to smooth any ballast when wet is a mistake and worsens the imperfections. I weathered the rail after with WS weathering markers. Steel, rust and tie colours. I did this after ballasting which was also a mistake as the ballasting chipped/scraped it off while cleaning excess ballast on the inner rail. Also the marker paint stained the ballast and requiring paint touch up. I'm not sure I like that stuff and will likey airbrush the weathering effects on. I did a little ballast rework on the graded areas, brushed on some browns to the ties to get a varied look and the end result was very acceptable. Hmmm I was going to post before and after but can't seem to figure out inserting photos yet. Next, I pretty much started the same with the test turnout. I weathered the rail with the weathering pens first and let that paint dry seveal hours. I sealed the bottom of the turnout with the same waterproof DAP used the affix the staight track to the sub-roadbed being careful not to coat the manual switching slider on the bottom of the turnout. Let it dry and then affixed it to the sub roadbed with the same adhesive used to seal. The sealing seemed to help but the slider would still make gluing the moving slider plate problemtic so I built a dam around the slider pin area. Good thought but a pain in the butt. I will try temporarily seal that area with sticky tack next time. This will seal the entire turnout from glue seeping as this time I had to keep the switch moving every 15 min or so to keep it free.....not acceptable. The inner rail area was ballasted first I stayed clear of the points and adjacenet ties. I mixed paint to match the ballast colour (dark gray in this case) and painted all of the tie gaps between the ties To affix ballast in the safe areas between the rails I used the thick Aleene's craft glue straight and carefully drizzled a little ballast over the glue. The sloped graded outer ballasting went the same as the straight track test only I didn't rework it while wet. Again the little "sand bag" ring to protect the slider plate held out the IPA and Scnic cement but ballast still got into the slider opening. I'll switch to sticky tack for this. Its way easiers tan caulk and I can completely seal the opening whil I ballast. Other problems: The slider tie that actually moves the points must stay clean and dry. When working I lose track of that as I moved along and slapped the wetter and glue down I ran right over this moving part. I will paint red dots on the ends of the slide tie to warn me. Tape. I used none. After taking care on the inner track area not to get ballast grit in the mechanically moving parts I still had a freely working automated switch mechanism, however even with good care and attention I still got ballast into the movement areas between the rails. A little (like a grain) goes a long way in making machine switching iffy. Right now manual works but the machine can't overcome the friction caused by the ballast grit. I will use fine detailing tape on the contact points from the start (cleaning tape residue off with acetone when completetely finished). Also I will seal the inner track area with blue painters tape prior to ballasting the outside grade down to the the sub roadbed. No matter how careful I was, I got ballast into the works. This is not going to be an easy job. I'm figuring 3 hours per turnout. I'm sure I'll find more issues to contend with as I do this for real. The test pieces were just glued to pieces of foam and worked on at my kitchen table. I do still think that I will do the areas between the rails prior to gluing the turnouts into place. I'ts way easier to do fine detail work with the piece in my hand. Thanks again for ideas and more are always appreciated. I'll keep ya'll posted. Gah, Ballasting was always my least favorite part of building a layout....Z Scale may make that task fall even further on that list! Tim
