Ballast

For a while now I have been looking to ballast the portable layout.

I have looked at various possibilities, cat litter, ash, even real ballast which is obviously far too heavy.

Recently I found this product:

black cork granules

Then I found a stockist near Caen so I had to go and buy some today to try.

Here is what it looks like:





The weight is negligible, the bigger (up to 10mm) lumps can be broken up smaller in the fingers....I haven't tried the food blender yet.
Can be glued down easily enough and is water and oil resistant.
Seems ideal to me for what I need.
A 250 litre bag will do the layout twice over I reckon.

Ideal for a portable layout Carl, or even an outdoor one! Price?

mikey

It's a bit expensive I suppose. The company in the link is sellinng it for 38€ (special offer) a 250l bag. but they're way down south in Valence and the shipping is too costly for me.

The stockist at Caen is more expensive @ 50€ but they're just a retail outlet selling eco products and they're only an hour up the road.

You'll have to glue it down well for outdoor use as it will just blow away.

Is it flameproof Carl ?
Would be interesting and slightly alarming to watch it act like a 'slowmatch' and work it's way around the track

How about whizzing a bunch of wine corks through a blender?

It does go in a blender if you want smaller granules. I tried it this evening....

Troy it is flameproof or rather 'fire retardent'. The stuff I bought is normally for domestic insulation and conforms to various directives. They also went to great lengths explaining that it was rat proof too... which I thought very useful.

Looks great, Carl; very realistic.

BTW, rats like to gnaw on cork; that's why there's a metal foil seal on a wine bottle. Rat-proof cork is a feature a real Frenchman could appreciate.

But is it Mole proof?

Here's the techincal specifications for it in French....rats, fire and all...!

Technical spec

Looks like pretty safe stuff to use.

BTW, it will combust , but slowly without releasing toxic chlorides or cyanides. Nice to know.

"Graded grains make finer flour".

Improvised a sieve/colander with 7mm holes and created near scale ballast.
This is 10 litres and we've hardly touched the main bag.



The very big 'boulders' make good lightweight wagon loads.



The rest I'm separating into a large bin and will run it through the blender to reduce the size if and when required.

Interesting, i wonder if such a thing exists over here - possibly i might find some useful for me diorama

Looks really good,! and perfect for a portable layout/diorama

mikey

clive_t wrote:

Interesting, i wonder if such a thing exists over here - possibly i might find some useful for me diorama

Look around for loft insulation Clive.This stuff was quite popular over here for a while before fibreglass dominated the market.

Thanks Troy - i've done a bit of Google-ing at work (like you do! ) and although i couldn't find anyone doing it as loft insulation, i did find a couple of places where it was being sold as vivarium substrate and also for scenery on model slot-car layouts! A 30g bag for £3.50, though??? Blimey, anyone would think i wanted to inject the stuff!

Still, at least it's available, and it's not like i need a huge amount

How much do you need Clive?

I could send you a small bag of the stuff if you'd like.

Don't forget the cork I've got is 'black'. Well it's actually shades of black and dark brown.

The stuff for models that I saw elsewhere was just natural colour.

Interesting. I found ground cork actually being sold as ballast
http://www.eurorailhobbies.com/erh_detail.asp?CA=57&stock=BU-7131

and a company claiming to be the only maker of granulated cork in the US (although none of it is black). They also offer to collect your used wine bottle corks for recycling.
http://www.marylandcork.com/Granulated-Cork.aspx

There's also a Tariff ruling on improtation of ground cork (there is apparently no tariff):
http://www.faqs.org/rulings/tariffs/45019040.html

The cost for small bags of the stuff is ridiculous.

I'm going to bag up some for smaller scales and see what it fetches on e bay!

BTW the black stuff would appear to come from Algeria.

I found somewhere cheaper as well.

Liege noir granulé only 33.75€ for 250 litres but the minimum order is 4 bags.

Carl Hibbs wrote:

How much do you need Clive?

I could send you a small bag of the stuff if you'd like.

That's very good of you Carl, but i think i need to source a consistent supply that i can get as and when - there is a pet store round the corner, so i might try them in the first instance.

It will be interesting to see how much you get for the stuff on evilBay though!

I found a UK link - Corkstore - probably the least exciting on line shopping experience on the web :
http://www.corkstore.co.uk/granulated-cork-33-c.asp

However I'm sure cork buffs have a similar dim view of garden railway folk.

Its 15GBP a kilo, but I've no idea what that is in litres.

dtsteam wrote:

............. but I've no idea what that is in litres.

Me niether. I tried to weigh it but it was a bit difficult standing on the bathroom scales holding 250 litres of cork and looking down at the measurement. It was as best we could see about 10 kilos.

But the cork I bought is actually expanded by some sort of steam process so it is less dense and much lighter by volume than the usual stuff.

dtsteam wrote:

However I'm sure cork buffs have a similar dim view of garden railway folk.

They did laugh in the shop in Caen when I told them what it was for.

Thanks Dave

Apparently cork has a density of 0.193grams per cubic centimetre, which is to say 0.193 Kg/litre

Therefore, since density is mass per unit volume it follows that 1kg of material will have a volume of .193 litres, or 193 cc

Coverage area of that will vary according to the size of the individual lumps i suppose, but if you assume that each piece is a uniform 5mm cube, then each cc will give rise to 2 square cm of coverage.

So, 193 cc would be about 386 square cm

Roughly.

So... erm... what do you reckon about, say, 10kgs ought to cover it?

Err, Tell me your not a maths teacher, Clive.

0.193kg/litre = c.5 litres per kilo

So Carls 250 litres would cost £750

However there is a clear business case for you to vist Carl for a few days and pick up a bag whilst you are there

PS. If you are really lucky, Customs will sieve it for ypu on the way back !

My local Leicestershire granite quarry, 5 miles away, offer as much 3mm granite finings/chippings as you can get into your car boot for a fixed price of £5.

Is it worth a sail over, wine one way, ballast for the return trip ?

I'm very impressed with the maths but I did get a bit lost in the calculus.

So in practice:



I litre, (the measuring jug full) weighs approx 70 grams (each small division on Wifey's purloined scales = 20 grams).

So you boffins can to do the maths but 250 litres methinks actually weighs 17.5 kilos (....PC calculator) which on greater reflection is about right when I was carrying and subsequently stuffing the giant bag into the Twingo.

So am I sitting on a lucrative 'cash cow' of cork then?

David Grantham wrote:

My local Leicestershire granite quarry, 5 miles away, offer as much 3mm granite finings/chippings as you can get into your car boot for a fixed price of £5.

Is it worth a sail over, wine one way, ballast for the return trip ?

Yes it could be...I will need that for the garden.