Eggesford progress
It has been quite a while since I reported on the progress with Eggesford. The trackwork is all finished and trains are running well over the complete circuit. The locking frame has been installed and the points all operate from Hoffman. Point motors. The signals have yet to be connected to the frame.
The next stage is to install point ridding and start on the job of ballasting. In the past I have done this by brushing in he ballast then fixing with dilute PVA, always a horrible messy job! Talking to a member of the scalefour society at a recent meeting of the Devon Finescale Group it was suggested I try furniture polish. There is a good thread on the scalefour website forum about using Johnsons Klear liquid floor polish. I had difficulty finding that particular make but got an equivalent at B&Q. When the polish is dropped neat along the edge of the ballast it seems to be quickly sucked into the ballast without disturbing it at all and best of all it drys quickly. I decided to do a comparison test with two lengths of track.
The first picture shows the test after five minutes;
The next one is after two hours. The polish has dried but the PVA is still wet and mucky.
Finally by the next morning both are dry but the PVA one shows very shiny sleepers where the glue has dried and the ballast has been very disturbed. The one fixed with polish is more even and neater and would not require too much in the way of weathering.
The winner is the floor polish method. Now to do the whole layout!
Nicks workshop mutterings 
Reblogged this on sed30's Blog and commented:
Nice work
Comparing the polish to the dilute PVA method, how well bonded is the ballast in the polish sample? I’m sold on the comparison in application but curious to know how well the polish will perform over time or, at least, your initial thoughts?
Hi
After two days it appears well bonded. I have tried rubbing over the ballast and very little, if any, came off. Also, I used a very fine ballast to suit the scale and the polish one has a very even finish. The one done with PVA has a very rough finish and there are large clumps of ballast. My initial impression is that the polish has fixed the ballast very well and evenly and looks like it is going to be quite resilient. Time will tell!
Thanks. I’m really curious to try this out as an alternative to the traditional thinned-glue method.
/chris