Brown Medium Ballast Bag

A brown gravel with a distinct grain

The medium fraction in a brown tone is a material for areas where it is meant to be clear at first glance that this is gravel and not earth. The brown color keeps the surface in an earthy register at the same time, so a scene does not start to come across as a freshly poured line. It works well on shoulders, on the slopes of embankments and everywhere stone is poured loose and nobody levels it.

Suggestions for use

• the shoulder of a road, along which the gravel spreads out into the grass
• the slope of an embankment, where the stone has slid down into an irregular cone
• a heap of stone at a building site, ready to be worked in
• a spoil tip and an access road in a small quarry

With loosely poured heaps the key is the natural angle. Let the material slide down of its own accord from a scoop or from a paper cone and resist the temptation to adjust the shape with your fingers; a cone that has slid down has an angle no smoothing can imitate. Only then comes misting and soaking with the binder. On slopes it proves best to fix in sections from the top downwards, so that the soaking does not drag the grains into the lower part of the scene.

Brown stone goes well with grass growth and with earth, so it makes a smooth transition into vegetation without a sharp boundary. The package has a volume of 353 cm³.

A grain of this size is rewarding for freight wagons too: tipped into the bed of a model it says at once what the vehicle is carrying, and at a slight angle the load looks settled. Fix it in the bed with a thin binder so that it does not spill about while the model is handled.

Keep the remainder in a closed container. Damp will do loose material no harm, but it sticks it into lumps that have to be crushed again.