Modeling Water (river bed)

[Anonymous]

A couple questions here:
1. What is a good product for modeling water for a river bed?

2. My river bed is actually on an incline, about 5 degrees. Is this going to pose a problem when I put in the "water"? Is it all going to run down to one end or are the fake water products thick enough so it won't run?

Thanks,
Joseph

[Seamonster]

There are many, many different ways to model water and everybody has their own favourite way of doing it. I'm sure you'll get quite a few responses on this. The method I used, after trying a few others with less than satisfactory results, was a product by Woodland Scenics called Realistic Water. I first made the river bed of plaster and contoured it. I then painted it with artists' acrylic paints from an art supply store. I used three colours: very dark blue, light blue and tan. The middle of the river got the dark blue (almost black) paint, then came the lighter blue on both sides of it, then the tan colour near the banks. I mixed each colour with its neighbouring colour to create transistions and also blended the colours into each other where they met while the paint was still wet. After the paint was dry I glued down rocks and debris in places then poured two fairly thick layers of the Realistic Water. And it looks very realistic, too. Everybody who sees it has commented favourably on it.

The trick for most of the water techniques is the painting. Water isn't flat blue, except maybe in the Carribean. There have been some very good articles in MR about painting for water and most books on scenery making should tell you how to do it. My artistic skills are one step above zero, so it doesn't take a great deal of skill to do it.

As for your incline, just about any water technique you would use other than just painting the river will require the river bed to be level or it will run down to one end. You'll have to prop up your layout at one side somehow to get the river level. Another point is that any liquid which you will use will find the tiniest crack or hole in your river bed and drip out onto the floor unless it is very thoroughly sealed. The paint job should do that for you.

Good luck with your river, Joseph.
...Bob

[Anonymous]

Jo:

There are a number of current threads concerning modeling water on the fourm, do a search for them. They contain answers to your question on products and techniques.

5% is a very steap grade to model, you will have problems with flow of the modeling medium. If you insist on a steap grade the only pricatical solutions are: stepping the flow over several points, visulaize a series of shelfs mini waterfalls, more practically pour the water medium with the channel elevated at the bottom end to reduce the grade.

Randy

[Anonymous]

A river falling at 5% would not be navigable, and would likely be rushing rapids as well as rather shallow. So, you should place a lot of boulders and "waterfall" shelves, as was mentioned before. However, you wouldn't need to make continous horizontal "dams" to make this work. One thing you can do is take cotton balls, tease them out a bit, glue them at the breaches in the dam where the water cascades down, and then use either epoxy or gloss medium or whatever your water material will be to saturate the cotton ball. While it is setting up, you'll be able to tease the cotton into shape, creating the whitewater which will complete the dam. Let that cure or set up, and then you'll be able to pour in behind it normally. Ideally, you'd fill in behind until it begins to flow over the rapids you just created, so that everything ties together fluidly.

All of this is going to require breaking things up into discrete segments, which might rule out two-part epoxy. I prefer epoxy, but mixing it up is inconvenient and unreliable in small batches; you have to get the proportions right or it won't cure fully. So I would consider the other options first.

[Anonymous]

Here's a thread...

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10214

Good luck. Holler with questions...

[snowey]

I prefer acrylic gloss medium. Non-toxic, water based, and easy to apply!