I agree that a spoon is quicker and a lot cheaper. I use some cheap makeup brushes for getting the between-the-rails ballast where it needs to be and off the tops of the ties (on mainlines) and where I want it on sidings, spurs, branchlines and yards.
I cut my cork close to the outer edge of my ties and break the sharp edge with a sanding block with 220 grit emery cloth...and use a Styrene Ballast Contour Tool I made that conforms to UP's specs for mainline ballasting to get my ballast profile pretty close to the prototype's. It registers on one rail of my Code 55 flex with plenty of space for the inevitable errant piece of flash on the sides of the rails, rail joiners and feeders that might be soldered to the outside of the rail web (I solder all my feeders to the underside of the rail foot nowadays). It does only one side of the ballast at a time, and I had to make both a Code 55 and a Code 40 one.
Photo (1) - Code 55 Ballast Contour Tool:
Just for giggles, here's an old official UP drawing of ballast & subroadbed profiles for single track mainlines in case anybody is interested...
Photo (2) - Official UP Drawing of Ballast Profiles Etc.:
I also have diagrams of UP branchlines and double tracked mainlines if anybody wants that information.
They're all 3 to 1 slopes on everything, the main differences being the subroadbed slope contours under the ballast which nobody would see in N-scale.
If you choose to do it by hand, a 1" wide, flat-bottomed brush is best for maintaining a semi-flat slope on your ballast edges sloping down to the subroadbed. I do a lot of free-hand profiling anyway since my Contouring Tool doesn't work very well in complicated trackwork such as in yards or around turnouts.
Makes me want to get started laying track on my new layout sections!!
Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore
