Hello fellow builders,

About 3 years ago I was at a crossroads: I was etiher going to sell all my Märklin M-track and buy C or K, or I was going to stuck with that ugly looking stuff. One day a friend told me: "Why do you want to sell those classics, they wouldn't worth a dime, try to do something with them".

About 8 months ago I started to build my layout. I decided to ballast my tracks so that they would look a bit more realistic. But the ready material I could find was not matching the era of the layout. By sheer coincidence I discovered aquarium gravel was a great candidate for the job.

Observing the tracks here in Turkey I noticed that they had a lot of weed between them; that was not something you could find in Europe very often.

And as I keep building the layout and laying the tracks, I realized that M track could really be turned into something very appealing.

Here's the story of my tracks ...

In the beginning, just glue the ballast in place and weather:


Add some gravel ...


Add some sand and bushes ...


And some weed between the tracks ...


Looks good even in close-ups ...


Can get even better at eye-level ...






And one final photo ...


Well, this is far as I have come. I'm still working on the layout and I hope to finish it by May 2009.

Grüssen,

Cem.

Guten Morgen,

meinen Glückwunsch zu dieser hervorragenden Bastelarbeit - da geht einem M-Gleis-Bahner wie mir das Herz auf!
Ich stand auch vor der Wahl: M-Gleise zum Schleuderpreis verkaufen und für teures Geld C-Gleise kaufen oder bei bewährtem Material zu bleiben und die freien Kapazitäten in den Fuhrpark zu investieren. Habe mich dann für letzteres entschieden...
Von so einem "Layout" bin ich allerdings noch Lichtjahre entfernt... Aber jetzt weiß ich ja, wo ich mir sowas anschauen kann!

Gruß, Dirk

Hi Dirk,

I totally understand it: "... invest in fleet"

When I first started the layout I visited the local hobbyshop for some grass foilage because I didn't want to buy one of those expensive grass applicators. And the foilage was about €10 per 20-30 cm2. Even for a small layout as mine grass only would then cost more than €300!

So I bought some wild grass and started experimenting with "manually" electrifying the material (this basically what the applicator does). Here's the result:



Close-up ...


Now I know there's always a better and cheaper way to do things, and I can invest more in my fleet

MfG,

Cem.

cem

wonderful. great, you are are very good. make more pictures.

Zitat von fuchs01

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cem

wonderful. great, you are are very good. make more pictures.

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Micha hi,

I gladly would do that, probably over the weekend

But until then here's a little something: swamp under the pass (still requires some work)



Cem.

Looks great! But I prefer using my M-Tracks with the original look, cause I'm a nostalgic maerklin-friend!

Sieht großartig aus! Aber ich bevorzuge meine M-Gleise original zu belassen, weil ich Freund nostalgischer Märklin-Bahnen bin!

Jerry hi,

Deep down I wanted to do what you say, but for I have very limited space and I wanted to improve my skills on scenary building this was my only option.

But hey, I still get that great sound!

Cem.

Hi Cem,
das sieht ja suuper aus-erstaunlich, was man aus den Blechdingern noch "rauskitzeln" kann. Da fällt mir ein: irgendwo muß ich auch noch ein paar Kisten voll haben...
Harald

Also ich bin auch verwundert, was man mit den M-Gleisen alles anstellen kann!

I surprised what we can do with the old M-Tracks.

Ich habe mir auch schon Schotter gekauft und werde auch teilweise/ggf. auch ganzs Schottern.
Aber nicht in den Zwischenräumen, da kommt zu viel in die Zahnräder!?
Denn ganz fest wirds nie, wenn dann nur Kork in die Mitte.

Für den Satz in Englisch reicht mein Englisch nicht, aber mal in billig Englisch
:

I bought some sand to put it on my M-Tracks, too. I will try it at the weekend!

Hello
What a fantastic work. That looks like the big one.

Greats Andreas

Hello again,

First things first: please keep writing in German, I am using google translation which works really fine. If you need help translating let me know and I will tell you how to do it.

And "dänke" for all the kind words.

Mält hi, the way I ballast is: apply white glue to the side of the track and pour the ballast. Don't worry about the bottom. Let it dry. With a wide brush collect the loose ballast at the bottom - collect towards the track and you get a nice little height at the edges. When you're ready, wet the ballast completely with 1/1 water/white glue mix. This is best done with a syringe. This way you get no loose particles. Almost the same goes for weed, with a thin brush apply water/white glue mix where you want it to stick and pour the turf. Let it dry and clean the rest with vacuum cleaner. Voila!

MfG,

Cem.

Ok, I will do it like that.

But....school first

When I done it I will upload some photos, so you can see my work.

Great work! It looks like heaven!!!

I have got C-Track, so I don't have to do that


I use "Noch Schotter". It looks great, too.

But your work is better!

Mält hi,

Wise decision; heaven can wait! Don't forget to post pictures

CS; dänke! Can do some wonders on C-track too

I use Noch for wild grass (mixed with Faller and Heki), they have a great selection. But for gravel I couldn't find thicker ones here, only very thin modern stuff.

Grüss,

Cem.

Zitat von knorrbremse

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Mält hi,

Wise decision; heaven can wait! Don't forget to post pictures

CS; dänke! Can do some wonders on C-track too

I use Noch for wild grass (mixed with Faller and Heki), they have a great selection. But for gravel I couldn't find thicker ones here, only very thin modern stuff.

Grüss,

Cem.

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Hi!

Good work!

Take a look at my website I have done this M-Track tuning 10 years ago!





Viele Grüße

Sven

Hi,

Very very nice Sven ...

What have you used on sleepers? Sand?

Cem.

Zitat von knorrbremse

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Hi,

Very very nice Sven ...

What have you used on sleepers? Sand?

Cem.

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Hi Cem,

I used Faller N/Z - Schotter (Ballast for gauge N or Z).
This material is very good for use as ballast between sleepers of M-Track.
The only disadvantage, you have to dispense casein glue before, cause this ballast is not made from stone! If you use the traditional method for graveling it will change colour into black!
It is a lot of work, but i think it was worth it!

Best regards,

Sven

I tried ist with waltpaper paste, but the edges weren't good.

So now im triying it with white glue and water.

I hope it's dry in the evening.....

So, It is dry:

But the edges aren't so good, too.

Now I test is with your version.

Zitat von MÄLT

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Also ich bin auch verwundert, was man mit den M-Gleisen alles anstellen kann!

I surprised what we can do with the old M-Tracks.

Ich habe mir auch schon Schotter gekauft und werde auch teilweise/ggf. auch ganzs Schottern.
Aber nicht in den Zwischenräumen, da kommt zu viel in die Zahnräder!?
Denn ganz fest wirds nie, wenn dann nur Kork in die Mitte.

Für den Satz in Englisch reicht mein Englisch nicht, aber mal in billig Englisch
:

I bought some sand to put it on my M-Tracks, too. I will try it at the weekend!

---

Was verstehst du unter dem Satz

Zitat von MÄLT

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Für den Satz in Englisch reicht mein Englisch nicht, aber mal in billig Englisch.

---

Das kann ich nicht verstehen, ähm, seit wann kann man Englisch kaufen?

Well done.

Zitat von Baureihe 232

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Zitat von MÄLT

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Also ich bin auch verwundert, was man mit den M-Gleisen alles anstellen kann!

I surprised what we can do with the old M-Tracks.

Ich habe mir auch schon Schotter gekauft und werde auch teilweise/ggf. auch ganzs Schottern.
Aber nicht in den Zwischenräumen, da kommt zu viel in die Zahnräder!?
Denn ganz fest wirds nie, wenn dann nur Kork in die Mitte.

Für den Satz in Englisch reicht mein Englisch nicht, aber mal in billig Englisch
:

I bought some sand to put it on my M-Tracks, too. I will try it at the weekend!

---

Was verstehst du unter dem Satz

Zitat von MÄLT

---

Für den Satz in Englisch reicht mein Englisch nicht, aber mal in billig Englisch.

---

Das kann ich nicht verstehen, ähm, seit wann kann man Englisch kaufen?

---

Ich bin am Anfang meiner Englischzeit (naja ok...4 Jahre) und da nenne wir (in unsere Region und so) billig....

Kann sein, das Ihr bei euch sowas nicht sagt