PROTO 48 LAYOUT #3 - TRACK EXPERIMENTS

 I want to have almost everything concerning the handlaid track work dialed in prior to actually building any on the layout.   I plan on cutting the ties myself, since this is relatively easy to do accurately in 1/48 scale.  The two most common materials used for O Scale ties, are white pine and basswood.  Both of these are soft enough to take spikes without splitting, but hold them well.  It will come down to which looks closer to the prototype after finishing.   

This is a block of basswood I had laying around my shop.   Although my supplier has a variety of thicknesses of basswood, most are 4-6” thick.   In woodworking, basswood  is used primarily for carving, so bench the thicker slabs.  

I’ve cut the basswood into more manageable blocks and then cut the tie materials.

Glued to a board.  The pine at top, looks more prototypical prior to stain.

The basswood absorbed stain better.  I’m using a water based Walnut stain made by General Finishes as my base coat.  It’s a black-dark brown-grey stain combo.

Some additional fiddling around by selectively adding some Dark Brown Dye Stain (also General Finishes) 

Testing the ties with some “ballast”.   The ballast is actually cat litter - another test.  Probably somewhere back in past posts I’ve discussed my dislike of Woodland Scenics Ballast (I like their other products)   Woodland Scenics ballast is made of walnut shells that tend to float more than I would like during the glue phase of ballasting.   Scenic Express sells ballast made using real stone, however, I have avoided purchasing anything from them since around 2007 when I asked them for a catalog at Timonium and they said only if I bought something.  We were at Timonium for the weekend with the Free-Mo group, and was actually planning on buying a lot from them, but just wanted to go through the catalog first and then before the end of the two day show make my purchase.  Rubbed me the wrong way, so I find my scenery elsewhere.   The cat litter is a clay product and is fairly close to what was probably coming out of the local trap rock quarries on the CNJ.  Perhaps slightly on the light side.  I’m going to experiment with adding some Woodland Scenics cinder ballast in small amounts to the mix.  I also need to see if there is any issue with this material being affected by the glue and water when I actually glue down.  I did sift out the larger chunks, and have since made an even finer sifter that gets the rock size to where I want to be.   Again, just fiddling around. 

Finding the right tie color is difficult.  If you look at the prototype, most are either newer, very black/brown ties, thanks to upgrades by railroad, or, on unused or little used lines, sun bleached old ties, typically very whitish grey, with some brown.  I’m modeling a heavily used, but likely poorly maintained, branch line, where the majority of the freight was liquid petroleum or chemical products.  I’m going to probably go with a darker black/brown color, and the ballast will be heavily weathered, darkened.