Lt. Gray Fine Ballast Bag

Fresh ballast that has not yet had time to turn gray with traffic

The light gray tone belongs to stone shortly after it has been spread. Crushed granite has sharp edges and a light fracture at such a moment, and only in time is it dulled by dust, grease and rust. On a diorama this shade therefore signals a recent repair of the line, a new stretch or a band of ballast that nobody has yet run over.

Ideas for its use

• a stretch of ballast after a repair, set apart in color from the older line around it
• crumble and crushed concrete on a construction site or in ruins
• a firmed-up surface by a new hall, a parking lot and a handling yard
• a light base layer under a darker scatter, which gives a scene depth

The difference in color between new and old ballast is worth bringing out: pour the light stone into a marked band, make the neighboring area from a darker shade and rub the transition out with a brush, so that the boundary is not ruler straight. The fixing solution is applied from a bottle with a thin needle straight into the wetted layer. Do not underrate the wetting, as otherwise the light grains will float away at the first drop of binder and the edge of the band will be smeared.

Once it is dry it is a good idea to powder the light surface only lightly with dust pigment, so that it does not look deadly white but keeps its difference from its surroundings at the same time. The volume of the bag corresponds to 353 cm³ of loose material.

Anyone building a scene from two periods will appreciate that the same color can be layered. An older dark base shows through a new layer and the transition between the repaired and the original stretch has no sharp edge even where the work stopped in the middle of a field.