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Tony I wouldn't do that. You want to get your track down and secured to your roadbed/table first, doing it the other way will give you all kinds of trouble trying to get it level and straight.
As others have said you want to make sure the insides of the rails are cleared of any bits of ballast that might interfere with the wheels and around all your turnouts. The last thing I do before I start gluing down the ballast is to run a toothpick along the insides of both rails to get the last bits out of the way and all around the turnouts also.
For a bit more info on the mainlines the ballast is normally laid pretty and neat, very little if any left in the ties but on the sidings, spurs and yards most lines are not so picky and sometimes the ties can not even be seen. Just go to some rails around your area and look at what you see there and then use that info for your layout.
Good luck and let us know. Good stuff nobody can help you with you've already got it right, bad stuff yeah there are a lot of folks here to help you with that.
Turnouts: all ballast cleaned off the ties. Track: varying amounts of ballast on the ties and tie ends.
Your road may vary, but this is how they do it in Minnesota.
Tie color: black, gray.
I do a lot of stuff the hard way, apparently. I sprinkle the dry ballast on dry ties, brush off the excess, then apply drop of Scenic Cement (Woodland Scenics product) between each tie. Works, but like said, not the fastest approach.
I ran out of scenic cement a few months ago and mixed up my own concoction of elmers, a couple drops of soap, and water. Lately, I picked up another bottle of Scenic Cement and it spreads out a lot better than my home made stuff. I might have been doing something wrong, but the Scenic only costs about $7 and usually lasts me years.
I don't think there is a wrong way to do this, unless you don't like the outcome.
I think you are right lasm, about there not being a right or wrong way to do this. It comes down (for me) to what works best for the individual and the end result.
I have been practicing, using the various techniques suggested, to see what does work best for me and, more importantly, what looks best in the end. The one thing that I have gleaned from this is that "less is best". I think that is what I was doing wrong with my first attempt, putting too much ballast down.
I have a couple of test pieces done so will put up a couple of pictures for opinion later today.
Not to hijack this thread, but does anyone have any recommendations for good ballast? I've been using the Woodland Scenics ballast on my diorama and I've found that it's just too light weight. It tends to go all over the place when I'm spreading it and when I hit it with the alcohol, it sometimes washes away like a landslide. Is there another brand that may be a bit heavier? More like real rock?
I'm using Medium Ballast with HO track. I really just find that it's difficult to control because it's so light it just flies everywhere when I'm brushing it around.
I'm using Medium Ballast with HO track. I really just find that it's difficult to control because it's so light it just flies everywhere when I'm brushing it around.
I use medium ballast as well and didn't have the "fly around issue" either. Even though my first attempt at ballasting was a little "rough" (to say the least) I sprinkled mine on fairly lightly and used my finger to spread it. I also applied a little 50/50 pva/water befor I sprinkled it to ensure that it stayed pretty much in place until I could spread it with my finger.
I tried bulk ballast from user name twl1469 on evilbay for my soon to be n scale layout. I'm very happy with it & it was dirt cheap (pun intended) @$9 for 10 pounds. Many colors. They ship in a 'postal one rate box', so you can get close to 25 pounds shipped real cheap. It looks just as good as the more expensive brands.
I found using a shorter bristle brush & smooth slow brush strokes the key for ballasting. You can also use a wide putty knife or cardboard to hold on the side of the track to keep it under control.
