Well my next task is a small farm with a pond. So I'm looking for some suggestions, like on how to finish the bottom, what's a good "water" material and if you have any pics, I'd love to them for ideas. Thanks!

i really like what you've done so far ... very neat and tidy! i have only worked with modeling water recently (and for the first time) and nothing that size, just a gully washer. here are my thoughts:

1) i dont know if its possible, but you may want to cut down on the meteor crater look. you may want to use some plaster to build up slopes on the edges. although, you might be able to hide this with some clever painting tricks on the bottom.

2) clever paiting tricks: you can trick the eye into thinking that there is a deep middle, getting shallower towards the edges. in the middle go with a darker color, lightening the shades up as you work your way from the center to the edges.

3) to model the water i have seen and heard of many products from enviro-tex to mod-podge. this may be a little time consuming and labor intensive. i have heard of using the 'rippled' plastic used to diffuse the large flourescent lighting systems in office buildings as a realistic way of modeling water. check it out at lowes or home depot in the lighting section. its cheap, thin, and should be easily cut to fit your lake. just follow the same rules listed about painting (darker towards the center, lighter towards the edges) and paint the bottom of the plastic.

sure hope this helps! again, your layout looks great and whatever route you take, i look forward to seeing your progress here ... please keep us updated!

You have to seal where you are going to use Envirotex-Lite, Realistic water, etc. You can do this with a thin coat of plaster and then paint. Fish's suggestion on grading down from the sides is good advise for two reasons. One it will make it look more realistic and two since you have scenery material right up to the edge of the pond, you need to create a margin to keep the water material away from the scenery material until after it dries. Realistic Water type products will leech into the scenery and you will not like that at all. I plan on using Envirotex Lite when I do my river which right now is at the cut into the foam, plastered and half painted stage. I will be also lining the river bed with river sand and gravel, and some rocks before pouring.

I like Enviro-Tex Lite and have used it for many years on many occasions. There are other good products out there, I'm sure, but I use what has worked for me and what I'm most comfortable working with.

As with any resin-type material, you do need to seal the area where you'll be pouring the stuff, be it a lake, pond, puddle, river, or stream. Otherwise, it will definitely find the smallest hole to leak through and you'll end up with an unwanted lake on your floor (one reason I always protect/cover the area under the pour. I use either Hydrocal or SculptaMold to seal the bottom and sides of whatever area I'm working on, and I use various paints to represent the different depths I may be looking for. You can also add tints to the resin itself.

Here's my river with a ripple effect I added just as the resin kicked...




My permanent lake poured directly into scenery...



Here's two portable lakes that can be moved around. This is 'Pour-On' resin mixed with acrylic river green and poured onto waxed paper. The acrylic adds the color and also keeps it from running too thin. Be sure to test the mix --- be sure the resin kicks. I have these lakes sitting here for the picture but I'm not sure where they will finally be placed...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Perry1060,

It looks just like a quarry that filled with water!

great idea mark!

quote:

It looks just like a quarry that filled with water!

Yes it does resemble a quarry, but I think it is suppossed to be a farm pond. Not too many quarries I think next to the Ol' farmhouse.

In Wisconsin there are many quarries of all sizes. Many are used for swimming.

But back to what PRRfan is planning.

PRRfan: Where do you envision the water surface, at ground level? What is under the grass? Is it foam, plywood, or homosote? Do you want to pour water or maybe plexiglass? What are your expectations?

How deep is your hole? From what I can see you are going to need a lot of whatever you use. For any of the liquids you should only pour about 1/4" to 3/8" at a time and let that fully cure. You can make multiple pours and not see it. You can make a look of depth by using colors on the bottom, dark in the deep areas and lighter towards the edge and you can also tint the liquid. Something that I just noticed on one of my ponds that was deep, is that it humped up in the middle. I don't know if it was one of my pours not being completely cured or what. This has been down for at least two years and I hadn't noticed it before.

Gene Anstine

quote:

Originally posted by Perry1060:
Here's my river with a ripple effect I added just as the resin kicked...




My permanent lake poured directly into scenery...



Here's two portable lakes that can be moved around. This is 'Pour-On' resin mixed with acrylic river green and poured onto waxed paper. The acrylic adds the color and also keeps it from running too thin. Be sure to test the mix --- be sure the resin kicks. I have these lakes sitting here for the picture but I'm not sure where they will finally be placed...

Explain kicked... I too am getting ready to do some water work and I like your effect. Can you give us a few more details on how this was achieved?

The March 2007 issue of Classic Toy Trains had an article by Kent Johnson on 3 ways to make streams and lakes. I don't know if you can download the article from the CTT web site or not. If I remember correctly, Kent shows how to paint the bank odf the stream or pond to give it a deep look.

Marty,

Resin kicking means that it completely cures, sets up, dries. By testing first, you make sure the batch of resin is good and that you don’t end up pouring resin that remains sticky and never dries. If that were the case, it would be a mess to clean.

In the first picture I posted, the left river bank has not been finished like the right river bank. I still have to carve it down and color and texture it sandy brown. Always pour the resin before finishing the banks so no colored resin seeps into the banks and ruins them.

For ripples, take a plastic pen casing and tease the resin back and forth until the resin kicks. It's very time consuming because you never know exactly when the resin will kick but if you left a little bit of resin in a cup or container, it will heat up as it begins to kick and that will give you some clue. I probably created the ripples 200 times before they finally stayed in place as the resin kicked. On average, the resin I use kicks in about 8-10 hours after you pour it so that's about the time to start paying close attention.

Then for pictures, the room lighting is the most important element, as it will highlight the effect and bounce the light around.

Good luck.

Your pond looks too deep. It may work better as a swimming pool by putting 'concrete' around the edge. My pond (it's actually a marsh) is on the surface. I just poured a berm around it, sprinkled some dark ground cover on the bottom for depth, then poured the resin.


I added a hunter, a couple dogs and some ducks afterward.

Most farm ponds are 10 to 16 feet deep and 50 feet across and up. What you got there we would call a mud puddle. Love ponds, you can pump 1500 gpm on them most of the day and not make a dent.

Gene Anstine

nice work there socal! very convincing scenery work ... really like the second shot with the hunter and his pups.

Wow, thanks for all the suggestions.

To awnser some previous questions: the hole is 1/2" deep and I don't know what you would call the wood material is - it's like a composite-type material made from wood. It's hard to work with and really heavy. Then I have a Woodland Senics grass mat glued down.

I made it on the deep side because I wanted to put in a shaped bottom, which I'm going to try plaster. What is a good paint brand/color(s) to use for the bottom?

I used a product from Michael's Arts and Crafts (chain store) for pond water. Michaels sells the product for use in containers with artifical flower arrangements. I believe the cost was around $12.99 for 12 ozs.

The process is to easily mix 2 6 oz bottles of liquid together and pour. I painted the center area of the pond area dark brown and feathered the color to a sandy tan closer to the shore. Looks good.

I agree with those above that your pond is too perfectly formed...more like a pool than a pond. Consider rounding out the shore edges by balling up newspaper and covering with plaster cloth to gradually create a the illusion of a deeper pond toward the center. Just a thought!

If you use plaster and towels make sure everything seals up. As Allan stated it will find every hole. We used plaster and then thinned Artist Acrylics to a wash. Started in the center with a dark brown and dark green and worked to the outside with a light brown for a more of mud look. Paint the banks before you pour. Enviro-Tex Lite will creep up the sides and that helps to stop it. You will still have some creep. The stuff from Michael's sounds interesting but I don't have anymore ponds to do.

Gene Anstine

quote:

I used a product from Michael's Arts and Crafts (chain store) for pond water. Michaels sells the product for use in containers with artifical flower arrangements. I believe the cost was around $12.99 for 12 ozs.

Do you remember what the product's name is?

I just checked the box...it is called "Quick Water."

The water area I built on my layout looks to be about the same size as the pond on PRRfan's layout. I used a 32 ounce kit of EnviroTex Lite that I bought at Michaels Arts and Crafts. That seemed to be just the right amount. Unfortunately, I don't remember the price, but I used a 50% off coupon. I think I paid about 8 or 9 dollars.

My lake is carved into a 3/4" piece of Styrofoam, but I layed a 1/4" piece of plywood in the bottom and then sealed the whole thing with plaster cloth. I used some acrylic paints to color it. I used various shades of blues and greens and did the darker colors in the middle to represent deeper water and light near the shoreline. I found that the best way to get the colors to blend and sort of run together was to just finger paint. When I first tried it with a brush I had real sharp edges between colors and it didn't look good. After the paint was dry I sealed everything with a can of Krylon matte finish clear spray. Whatever you do, make sure that there are no holes.

I mixed and poured the EnviroTex Lite in 2 batches about 2 weeks apart. You don't need to wait that long, but those were the times I had free. Make sure your water area is really level or your pond will look quite strange. I mixed half of the resin and hardener each time. I didn't bother trying to remove the bubbles and when I did the second batch I kept checking the hardness so that I could try to get some ripples in the surface. That was difficult. I would ripple it and then check 15 minutes later and it had leveled itself out. I finally did get some dimples in the surface. The lake looks pretty good.

quote:

Originally posted by PaPa's Neville:
I used various shades of blues and greens and did the darker colors in the middle to represent deeper water and light near the shoreline. I found that the best way to get the colors to blend and sort of run together was to just finger paint. When I first tried it with a brush I had real sharp edges between colors and it didn't look good.

great idea! i know what you mean about the sharp edges ... your approach makes much more sense. thanks for sharing it.

Here I have cut the lake into the foam and inserted the piece of 1/4" plywood.




I built some piers to support my girder bridges. Test fitting them.



Everything is covered with plaster cloth and I'm checking the fit of the piers and the dock. The dock is scratch built as are the piers.



It's all painted and the dock and piers are glued in place. Taking a time out because my grandson wanted to run the trains.



The first layer of EnviroTex Lite is poured. The boat is glued in next to the dock. Notice the deadfall snagged on the bridge pier.



The second layer of EnviroTex is poured. All that's left is to do the landscaping and put the track back in place.