[kilowatt62]

Okay. Which glue/adhesive are you folks using these days? I'd also like to use said glue to create loads for hopper, gondola, tender, etc.

Tia
Scott

 

[mesenteria]

Yellow carpenter's glue. Dilute it with water by about 80%, and add two drops of liquid dish detergent. Place a couple or three small clean pebbles in the mix to help shake it.

Once you have done a nice clean job of gluing the ballast, spray it with 70% isopropyl alcohol from the drug store. Don't soak it, just wet the top 1/8". You want the glue solution to wick down into the sand right away. Go easy with the glue...you don't want it running out the bottom edge of the ballast...just enough so that you know it's there.

As a tip: tap the rails with the handle of an artist's brush lightly along its length. Any grains of ballast remaining on the tops of the ties will settle off those surfaces inside of maybe four taps.

 

[MichaelE]

I recently started using a product called E6000 in a gentle pump spray bottle. Great stuff and has a very tight spray pattern and doesn't blow your ballast around.

 

[Kieta]

I recently started using a product called E6000 in a gentle pump spray bottle. Great stuff and has a very tight spray pattern and doesn't blow your ballast around.

I use that too, tube and spray. How has it worked out for Ballast?

 

[MichaelE]

Works great. As I said in my post.

 

[quigly7777]

Regarding the E6000 for ballast, do you use only it directly or do you prewet the ballast? After spraying assume you immediately clean the rail heads?

 

[MichaelE]

Use it directly and wipe the rails after application.

 

[CTValleyRR]

Regarding the E6000 for ballast, do you use only it directly or do you prewet the ballast? After spraying assume you immediately clean the rail heads?

Despite MichaelE's answer, I would pre-wet the ballast. Otherwise you end up with a hard crust over loose ballast, which isn't a good thing.

I use acrylic matte medium, diluted with 3 parts water and two drops of dishwashing liquid per cup of solution. For best results, allow the talc (added as a dulling agent) to settle out overnight and decant the solution.

Matte medium is much more expensive than glue, but it is more flexible when dry and resists discoloration better than glue, so it's worth it to me. I buy it at Michael's when the have 40-50% off one item coupons.