Got yet another one for my Forum friends: Is there a formula for thinning gloss medium to where it self-levels? I have a good size lake on my layout that has some depressions and uneven spots. I am trying to even the coating out without much luck. As usual any assistance that can be provided would be most welcomed.
It is a water-based medium so adding a small percentage-by-mass amount of good ol’ H2O should help a lot. It will delay the setup and drying time…
You can buy retarders fir acylics.
Don’t know who’s gloss medium he’s using, but there must be instructions on the container.
Following Selector’s advise, maybe he can try and “thin” the water with a alcohol.
I use distilled water, as there is a lot of lime in our village water system.
Or, maybe he can use Parks Super Glaze to over it all, filling in the depressions:
https://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/parks/super-glaze
Mike.
Note that adding water to the gloss medium will change it to having a flat sheen instead of gloss. That’s not that big an issue, once the water is set up the way you want it, you can brush on a light coat of gloss medium to make it shiny again.
Another approach might be to fill-in the low areas and fix the uneven spots. Drywall mud or patching plaster, applied with a suitably-sized drywall knife should make short work of it.
Once it sets, you may need to do a little touch-up with sandpaper, then vacuum-up any dust, and paint the repair to match the rest of the lake.
That should allow you to then use the gloss medium without any additional steps.
Wayne
Absolutely, and it is a most sensible suggestion. In fact, as I have posted a number of times over the years, I can’t abide the glossy level, unruffled, look that a medium/epoxy pour leaves once it is cured. I prefere a more natural-looking water surface, so I add one more thin layer and stipple it with the side of a brush or a foam applicator. I think it looks much better.
This is a heavily cropped sub-image, so it is obviously poor quality, but you can see the results of the ‘stippling’ process on the water surface. Works quite well.
That looks great !
Mike
The problem I have run into with that idea is that anytime I try to fix and repaint anything on the lake (and I have a few of those), it ends up changing the way the “water” looks in that area by changing how deep it looks.
I’m presuming that is a two-part epoxy. Anytime I’ve ever tried to use anything that is a two-part epoxy (glues, etc.) I always end up with a mess.
What do you mean “a mess” ? Whats so hard about it? It’s all in the prep work.
Mike.
If you fill-in the low spots in the lake, it seems to me that you’d use the same paint as you used originally, and simply re-paint the entire lake. Once you cover that with whatever clear gloss you’re using, it should look the same, minus the low spots, of course.
I think that a lot of modellers make the mistake of trying to create “deep” water features, when all they really need to do is create water which “looks” deep.
There’s a big difference between the two, both in cost and in effort required.
Wayne
I wonder if the difference in description might be the way I have done the covering on the lake. At times, I have put a small amount of the base paint in the medium to cover the area a bit better:
- The river is tinted Muddy River. It was done to disguise the uneven level of the river. I painted the mouth area to “flow” the river into the lake. (A lot of the rivers in my area are just plain brown from mud.)
- The lake color is Deep Lake. I have redone the lake floor a couple times and I tinted the medium to hide the redo. It then has had multiple layers of clear medium put on it using the gloss medium’s instructions for a built up finish.
That is the way I have achieved the depth look on the layout. I’ve ended up having to fix a few holes when I accidently left things on the soft surface of the lake (upside down sanding block, a bot