What material do you guys recommend for building up the "ground to roadbed" track transition? This may be a layout specific question so I'll describe my situation. Rokuhan roadbed track on a vacuformed plastic layout. I'm planning to use caulking (or Liquid Nails) to glue the track to the vacuum formed layout as the surface varies a bit but I'll position the track as level and straight as I can. This leaves some openings and imperfections in between to be filled. I will be laying the ballast over the track and onto this. So it should not be water soluble or shrink with time as that would distort or separate from the plastic layout or the track. Thanks
I am assuming the openings and imperfections you mention are from a transition between wood surface and plastic surface? Either way, just fill everything with ballast. If you get Arizona stuff, it will hold the profile well. Mist the ballast with soapy dish water, then drip on 50/50 white glue and water. For faster drying, place a box fan to blow air over the layout and it will dry 2-3 times faster. When dry, the ballast feels much like tile grout Very hard, but still water soluble. You can do touchup filling afterwards, right over the previous ballast if you have bare spots. If you don't like it, mist with soapy water and you can scrape it away.
It is an inspiration to many of us. You keep raising the bar for excellence and "fidelity of scale." Your layouts and modules are as good or better than any I have seen in any scale. Z is just more realistic looking, operationally, than the other scales. Thanks for setting the standard. Jim
[mention]rray [/mention] GREAT suggestion this Arizona company, you indicate you are using n-scale size for your rail road. When looking online, I see the 1 N Scale option but also an 03 Sand and Gravel option. Any thoughts on Z Scale wise what would be most appropriate? Thanks as always for your wealth of knowledge you share! -Tiest Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Ahh! They have a size 0 that is smaller than N, but it is a fine powder, suitable for representing beach sand. I got some in a different color, I think it was called Gray Granite Rock Powder to represent beach sand, but for Ballast, the N is perfect. Here you can see the size difference one step down in size makes:
[mention]rray [/mention] could not ask for a better answer. Bottomline the n-sized rocks looks actually fantastic as ballast. The sand looks equally fantastic but to model the environment. Thanks for the insight! -Tiest Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
