A former colleague of mine was building a model of the Swiss Metre Gauge system, in HO. He'd reached the ballasting stage. As we all know, there are several ways of representing ballast, whether we use track with ballast built in, whether we don't actually use ballast at all, but just paint the board a suitable shade, or whether we use real ballast. I once read about someone who used builder's plaster, and tried it myself. Never again! My colleague was doing it properly, with scale ballast. I don't know what brand he was using, but he came into the office one morning, slumped down at a desk - not his! - and announced he'd had a disaster the night before. We thought that the television, or the fridge, or the central heating had failed. No, it was FAR more serious than that, to him anyway. The brand he was using was creating a lot of dust. It had made him sneeze - ballast everywhere - and he said he couldn't wait to finish his duty so he could go home and start again. SHOULD HAVE USED A DUST MASK!
I don't know what brand of ballast was being used that caused such dust, but one way to further avoid this would be to wash all the ballast before proceeding. There are some ballasts that are virtually dust free, but don't know if they would be available across the pond. Smith & Sons (thru Scenic Express) is a very good brand I've used in the past, quite clean and is real rock! I hope this may help.
We learn by doing in this hobby. Some of us come to the hobby with prior learning in another milieu that we can easily generalize to other applications. This was the case for me when I opted to use very handy and nice-sized local beach sand...as in just down the my path to the beach on my property. When I brought the bucket up to the house, the first thing I did was to put a cup of sand in a metal pie plate at a time and wash it thoroughly. When it was dried, it flowed well, there were no bits of stuff in it, and it held no sodium chloride or other salts. I fully intend to do the same for a layout I hope to commence in the next several months.
I like to use local material for ballast and scenery. As long as it looks right. It is a good idea to check all the dirt and sand with a magnet. Doesn't take much to ruin a small motor.
How I do it is wet the area down slightly with a large dropper with a 50/50 mix white glue and water. The with one of those squeeze applicators spray my ballast down. Repeat this process down the outsides. ALlow few minutes to dry, brush away excess Once you've done a nice 12" section I wet the area down again with some additional solution. This will allow for final set of your ballast. Once your done for that session vacuum the area just completed. As far as what I use, I'm fortunate to be able to get the real product here locally. But I'm building a HO layout now that is of the East Region of the US so I will have to go with another ballast supplier. Probably Woodland Scenic or that Arizona company. They have a great variety.
