go to B & Q and buy some match pots for about 80p each - my wife uses them on her dolls houses for stone effects

My wife did exactly the same thing when putting her dolls house together.

Actually, that's a good tip. If the missus is getting annoyed at the number of locomotives that magically make their way onto the layout, buy her a dolls house! It's a high initial investment, but worth it in the long run. ;)

I did some experiments with diluted Copydex and Woodland Scenics ballast but wasn't very happy with the results. It only binds the ballast together loosely and is too easily damaged. Copydex might work better on the more lightweight model ballasts that are made from "sawdust".

Trev !!!

I`ve no room !!

My wife has 6 Doll`s houses , my daughter 2 and nowhere to play with my flying scotsman set she bought me for christmas last year - never mind mounting the track on a board to make a layout.:mad:

Never mind the Flying Scotsman Robbo, if your wife can get away with 6 dolls houses, I reckon that you'd be perfectly justified in having a 12ins to the foot scale set up in the back garden! :D

...which is the sort of ballast that I would be using anyway. But I'd want to be sure that it was properly stuck down so that bits didn't get drawn up into the innards of the locomotives. With your experiment in mind, I think I'll stick (mind the pun :D ) to PVA and rely on the foam underlay for noise reduction.

Why do you think she has 6 doll`s houses !! - working on it (big time) :)