I have a plywood base with 1" foam as my foundation, will sealing the stream area with latex paint work or should I use WS plaster cloth for the bottom, draping it over and onto the foam over the river banks?
Also any preference on either WS Realistic Water or some other water making stuff? I will be hope to using arcylic paints.
Thanks, Kevin
I seem to remember reading an article in Model Railroader where they used spackle to seal the base. This worked to fill in and hide the wood grain.
My experience with sealing streams/ponds, etc., is that it depends upon what you will be using for the “water”. If you are going to use WS Realistic Water (which I have always had great luck with, sealing the foam with latex should work just fine. I have done that several times (I seal with a light tan color and then layer other colors of acrylic on top to represent deeper and faster moving water towards the center of the stream). WS Realistic Water is sufficiently slow-moving that I can use plain old masking tape as a dam and not get leaks. I use gloss medium on top of the “water” to freshen it up every now and then and use special cystal-clear caulking to make waves, etc. on the top.
JIm
Paint should do it. I coat my stream beds with plaster (actually drywall compound) right up to the top and onto the scenery to get the contours I want. I paint the “water” colours on the plaster with cheap acrylics from the $$ store. I use WS Realistic Water over that and it doesn’t leak through.
Latex caulk and paint will work in most cases. I prefer using dyed plaster (Unical veneering), patching plaster is very similar. Plaster of Paris and Hydrcal will set too quickly and won’t allow enough working time if you ned to work on scenery base and contours. I never like using joint compound as it takes a long time to dry, is much too soft, cracks if applied too thick (more than 1/4") and is much too water soluable.
Almost every stream, river pond I do will have a fully sceniced based before pouring the water. Minor scenery touch ups are always needed as most water edges will show some sort of creap plus any additional vegetation and other scenery items are added later.
As for the water itself, I like Enviortex Lite if the water is to be poured to show depth and have submerged objects (rocks, trees, branches etc). Acrylic gloss medium applied over a painted base as already descibed, works great. Water surface texture, waves ripples etc are much easier done with this method. The Enviortex will ultimately end up perfectly flat and any water effects need to be added after curing.
I have used all the WS water products and am not happy with them. The pellet version is absolutely horrible to work with the Realistic water, even though I had no troubles using it, tends to stay way too soft, shrinks over time and the surface will not remain flat as when origionally poured. If it is poured any thicker than 1/8" if never sets properly so any deeper pours require many applications.
I would check out Joe Fugate’s Scenery clinic http://siskiyou-railfan.net/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?1270.30 scroll down to water and stream portion of the page. Some immpressive work.
I find the realistic water is fine, but I agree completely about the pellets (aka E-Z water!?). It smells horrible and dries an amber color. Strange normally I have deep respect for woodland scenics products, why would they make a product like this?[%-)]
Latex paint works fine as a sealant for me. I use Envirotex. No leaks.
I line it with a plastic trash bag on top of the foam and under the plastercloth to make it leak proof.
I have to agree completely with the comment on the pellets. I tried them. Ripped it out (it came out rather easily! Never again. I haven’t experienced any of the problems that others have mentioned with either drywall compound or WS Realistic Water.
I used the Magic Water product from Unreal Details with good success. A friend of mine failed to seal his river adequately and created quite a mess on his floor. I took the precation of having my entire stream be on one piece of foam with the riverbed carved out of it, smoothed with spackling and some sculptamold and sealed the ends using ample latex caulk and clear acetate (which I pulled away after the Magic Water set), and instead of pouring the Magic Water on site I had the entire piece of foam stream bed moved and contained in a large “bowl” of wood with a cheap plastic sheet under the foam – as it happens I had no problems and the precautions were not needed.
Dave Nelson