What do you use for WATER?


Charles Smiley

cspmovies
This creek is in HO scale. The basaic creek bed is done. I want to pour about 3/16" depth or so. I want it to look a little fresh and blue-ish reflecting the "sky".

What do you folks use for realisitic and durable water? Once poured, it's pretty hard to change. This is a poll of sorts I guess. Hopefully with your photos.

I have a bottle of Woodland Scenics "water" but I'm holding off to pour it just yet.
 
I use Gloss or Semi Gloss Polyurethane. But, almost everyone uses WS "Water".
 
Larry,

What do you do to make the ripples?

I'm thinking of trying a practice creek on a module before I mess up the layout. :)

I use clear Silicone in a caulk gun. I put in on the 2nd or 3rd pouring & spread it out in dribbles w/my finger. Then when it dries for a cpl. days I add another layer. the last pour kinda hides the high ridges. For a stream use a lot of small pea gravel for the bottom & use the silicone in a flowing manner. there's quite a few articles about water in Model RR mag & RR mod. Craftsman.
 
Here is my water. It comprises two clear layers of finish quality epoxy poured over a painted and sandy river bottom. Over those two clear layers, I poured a third layer with a pinch of Plaster of Paris and a half drop of "Hauder Medium Green" from Wally's. Once it was set, smooth and glossy like the others, I smeared gel gloss medium over it and stippled it with the side of a foam brush.

The result was exactly what I had hoped to achieve, the look of the South Thompson River in south-central British Columbia as it looks just after run-off.

Waterclose-upr.png


-Crandell
 
Envirotex Lite with ripples painted on afterwards with Artists Acrylic gel medium. (Sparkles added with Photoshop)
FISHIN.jpg
 
Charles, that's an awesome scene. After less than satisfactory results using WS water, I switched to Magic Water and WS Water effects for my Pa. mountain streams. DJ.

Hammer Creek.
P1040142.jpg


Roaring Creek

P1020954.jpg


P1040039.jpg


Stoney Creek

P1020828.jpg
 
All good lookin examples. I'm glad to see real solutions -- other than published stuff. I always wonder what the magazines agenda might be.

Grampy: What type of problem did y'all have with WS water? I especially like the water's color and look in the scene with the E-unit comin atcha. That's about the same viewing angle mine will have.
 
The WS water never really got hard, even after a year. Dust would stick to it. But the Magic Water did harden and can be cleaned with a damp cloth. DJ. I did not add any color, that's a reflection of my blue back drop, but color could be added when it's mixed. DJ.
 
Selector:

When you mixed the plaster and green color in the epoxy, did you have to watch out for making little bubbles when stirring? What's the working vs. cure time of the epoxy?
 
I bought some "surplus" bargin enamal paint once that never really dried. I painted a shed that you never wanted to lean against.
 
Charles, the epoxy requires the mixing of two parts, much like Envirotex (I think...). The product comes with two bottles, resin and hardener, and they are typically mixed with equal measures of the two fluids. Very thorough and patient mixing...or else!!!

I used a product called Nu-Lustre 55 by Swing Paints.

Regardless of additions, the product typically takes about 6-12 hours to harden enough that your finger nails click on it and leave no dents.

I didn't know what to expect when I added the modified final epoxy layer, but I knew I was no longer content with the clear previous two layers. They were nice and clear, looked good, but the surface was like glass...no texture. And how many rivers and streams are perfectly clear? Most are turbid and murky, almost like pea soup.

When I mixed the first two pours, they did bubble a bit, but these bubbles are easily dealt with....seriously. More about that in a second. But when I added the other two items, there was some early serious frothing of a sort, foaming maybe. I didn't really care, and kept mixing to ensure a homogeneous mix as the instructions caution. When I poured the batch, and spread it evenly with a wooden skewer, I was gratified to find that the foaming had stopped and that the entire pour was essentially bubble free!!!
All I had to do was to wait until it cured and then stipple on the top surface the gel gloss medium.

For any medium that seems to have tiny bubbles throughout it, take a soda straw and place one end in your mouth. With the straw at a 45 deg angle or so, and the open end about 3/4" above the surface of the new pour, simply blow a warm jet of air (gently!) all over the places where you see bubbles. They will disappear like magic.

I know this is long, but a final note. I would advise you to go lightly on the paint half drop, and I am not sure I would use the Hauder Medium Green a second time. It looks great in photos, but not so great standing over it. To dark, not enough yellow. So find a green more like spring foliage green and try that. You want a half drop in a volume of epoxy of maybe 3/4 cup, and that should be spread about 1/8" thick over a wide area, say 1.5 square feet.

No pours of any kind of medium should be thicker than about 1/8" to 1/4". Better to have to do two or three pours, correcting for problems in hue and turbidity as you go along, than to pour 1/2" thick and hate the result. And thick pours take forever to harden and to clear. Harder to clear the tiny bubbles, too....sometimes impossible.

-Crandell
 
Crandell,

That's all great info! I'm going to print it out and put it in the creek's construction folder.

One thing that I wonder about: Since some folks put on a top coat of Gloss Medium, could that be a material used to do all the layers?

BTW - I looked at the Woodland Scenics video on thier website for "Realisitic Water" and it was a real sketchy dissapointment. Not much insight there...
 
This is my "riverbed" before the Envirotex. I did the blue & sand color with an airbrush.
DRY-RUN.jpg

It's a flat surface otherwise, except for a "soup" of hydrocal for the bottom.
 
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Charles, I know some folks who even use reflective Mylar glued to plywood to simulate water, and others have used spread clear silicone caulk. Urethane works, and I am pretty sure a couple or three layers of gloss medium and gel gloss medium would do a good job. Note, though, that the gel is not really meant as a pour, but as a textured top layer, so I would urge you to keep to that practice. Do the pours, fiddle, discard and start over if it looks like the best way forward, and then keep a single, maybe two top layers for the wavy look.

-Crandell
 
The WS water never really got hard, even after a year. Dust would stick to it. But the Magic Water did harden and can be cleaned with a damp cloth. DJ. I did not add any color, that's a reflection of my blue back drop, but color could be added when it's mixed. DJ.

I am getting ready to add the small lake and creek to my layout and wondered if anyone else had trouble with the WS water not hardening properly. Could this be a result of pouring the layers too thick? Or is there some other trick to getting it right?
 
Nancy,

It may be influenced by temperature and humidity -- but depth for sure. Unless it's contaminated with something it will eventually cure.

My creek-bed wasn't as level as I thought it was and the 1/8" pour was twice as thick when it "self-leveled". So it took four times longer to cure and lose the cloudiness look. I think it's a surface-to-volume ratio type of issue.

So far my 40-inch x 3"-wide creek has used two bottles of "Realisitic Water". It seems to shrink when it cures. It looks fine, but it will take another bottle or two.

Oh! And one more thing. When you block off the ends of a creek or river it's amazing how that thick stuff can find the smallest imperfection in your dam and seep through. Use lots of old drop cloths to protect your flooring.

I'm thinking of adding a few drops of blue food coloring to the last pouring layer.

When it's finished I'll post photos if it turns out OK.
 
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Not blue, Charles, but a medium-light green. The surface will still reflect the blue of any sky you have on a nearby backdrop, but when you stand over it you should see water as it really is, greyish-greenish, with some turbidity. In fact, I would ask you to experiment by adding a very tiny amount of a medium green, say half a dollop into a couple of cups of the material, and also add about 1/4-1/2 tsp of Plaster of Paris.

I have seen blue-dyed water on layouts, and it is completely unrealistic. It looks like water dyed blue.

Crandell
 
Hi Charles-

You mentioned contamination as a possible problem. And you mention adding food coloring to the material--I assume that you don't believe that the food coloring would be a contaminant, but what about paint? If you're pouring the material over a painted surface, do you have to be careful not to disturb the paint so it doesn't get mixed into the material?

Is your creek 3" wide of water? I'm making mine about 2" rim to rim, but the water won't be all the way to the top. And it's only about 1/2 as long as yours.

Nancy
 



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