Water & Roads

[Anonymous]

I am new to MR with my first layout. I am beginning to landscape my layout and need to add a pond and city roads. I'v read a few landscaping articles/magazines and there are too many differing ideas. Does anyone have any experience in using Woodland Scenic's "Relistic Water" product? What about something called "Real Road" which appears to be some type of liquid that dries to a flexible road. Any helpful hints in landscaping these two items?
Thanks!
Ted

[Anonymous]

I just used the realistic water from Woodland Scenics. I like the idea of just opening and pouring BUT is tends to shrink alot. You have to pour it in small layers till you get the depth you will want. It looks nice if you color the bottom of your stream pond or what ever water you want. DO NOT use it on just painted foam as the foam will absorb it and swell up and then you start losing the depth you wanted. As far as roads I don't have a good answer for that as I just use and dark gray interior latex paint for roads.

[Anonymous]

TG:

Rather than answering you at length I suggest you do a topic search with the forum search engine. Both topics have been discussed at length several times. Reading the threads should answer most of your questions.

Road and pond construction are individual to each modeler, many methods work. You will surely develope your own varient.

I prefer Envirotex for water and tape and joint compound for roads. Both can be tinted with coloring powders or paint pigments to suit.

I suggest you test out whatever materials you select in test pours to get a feel of the characteristics of each.

Good Luck

Randy

[Anonymous]

I just used the Woodland Scenics water, it worked well for a small narrow stream, like was mentioned before painting and fixing the stream bed how you want it is very important, as far as roads I think this is a method that you must be comfortable with, I use Dry Wall compund for my black top roads, City streets are another mater that I still am trying to get the right look, Experemant I think is the key as there are so many different ways,

[MAbruce]

I have no experience with streets or roads, but I have done a pond and a stream. I used Gloss Medium over a painted surface (darker for deep water to lighter for shallow). You can see the results (in N-scale):





There are other methods that I have not tried, but have seen Environtex used with stunning results.

[Anonymous]

Hey, MAbruce, where are you located? That water looks so real my wife and I will be right over with our bass boat and fishin' stuff.

[Anonymous]

I have foam for my sub roadbed and was going to cut a hole then pour it in so what do you recomend as a base and a technique on how to paint it (what colours?). That water looks great!

[MAbruce]

QUOTE: Originally posted by platypus

I have foam for my sub roadbed and was going to cut a hole then pour it in so what do you recomend as a base and a technique on how to paint it (what colours?). That water looks great!

Thanks.

My pond is cut into a Styrofoam base, and it was a very messy job (little white beads everywhere). I used those cheap “AppleBarrel” acrylic water-based paints for the base. A combination of dark green tones mixed with black was used.

I’m sure that shades based on other colors (brown, blue, etc.) would work too depending on the type of body of water you want to model. I was after a stagnant pond, so I went with green tones. In any case, start with a lighter shade of color at the shore and transition to a darker shade as you go to the middle (giving it the appearance of deeper water).

If you find that the color is wrong, you can always paint over before you apply whatever you want to use for the gloss surface. I think I went through a couple of attempts myself.

Also, make sure the pond is water tight or your gloss surface material will leak out before it sets. And be sure to use a water based material (like gloss medium), or you could end up using something that will interact poorly with (melt) foam.

RAYMAR – I think you might be able to sneak out there for a while before the Game Warden takes notice. Lots of train activity in the area to watch too. I hear the Catfish are the size of beavers… [:D][:D][:D][:p]

[Anonymous]

Mabruce...do you have any more pics of your layout you can post? it looks exactly like what I wanted to do.

[snowey]

QUOTE: Originally posted by MAbruce

QUOTE: Originally posted by platypus

I have foam for my sub roadbed and was going to cut a hole then pour it in so what do you recomend as a base and a technique on how to paint it (what colours?). That water looks great!

Thanks.

My pond is cut into a Styrofoam base, and it was a very messy job (little white beads everywhere). I used those cheap #8220;AppleBarrel#8221; acrylic water-based paints for the base. A combination of dark green tones mixed with black was used.

I#8217;m sure that shades based on other colors (brown, blue, etc.) would work too depending on the type of body of water you want to model. I was after a stagnant pond, so I went with green tones. In any case, start with a lighter shade of color at the shore and transition to a darker shade as you go to the middle (giving it the appearance of deeper water).

If you find that the color is wrong, you can always paint over before you apply whatever you want to use for the gloss surface. I think I went through a couple of attempts myself.

Also, make sure the pond is water tight or your gloss surface material will leak out before it sets. And be sure to use a water based material (like gloss medium), or you could end up using something that will interact poorly with (melt) foam.

RAYMAR #8211; I think you might be able to sneak out there for a while before the Game Warden takes notice. Lots of train activity in the area to watch too. I hear the Catfish are the size of beavers#8230; [:D][:D][:D][:p]

what color do you mix with the gloss medium for the water? And how much? Whats the paint/gloss medium ratio?

[Anonymous]

and how deep do we cut into the foam? how do we waterproof the foam so it doesnt just absorb the water stuff? does the paint do the waterproofing for us?

[Anonymous]

I use AMI road bed for my roads. O scale seems to be perfect size for two way traffic roads!
For water ENVIROTEX is great[yeah]

[MAbruce]

Okay folks, I went back and reviewed what I did. This is the method I used, but there are other similar methods that work well too, as well as other materials that could be substituted. I strongly suggest you first try this out on a spare piece of foam. That way, you can experiment a little before you try it on your layout.

1. Mark out the area of your pond/lake on top of the foam.

2. Hollow out the area of the pond/lake. Do not go further than a half of an inch down (a quarter inch is ideal). Make sure that the pond depth is even (don’t make any part of the pond deeper than the other). Try to make the bottom somewhat smooth, but not very smooth.

3. The entire pond/lake area should not have any holes that go through the foam. You can test it out by putting a little water in it to see if it holds. If you find a hole, you need to plug it (I used some cheap white caulk I had around). I had to seal mine because my pond fell between two prices of foam, and the seam between had to be sealed.

4. Paint the bottom of the pond. I used Apple Barrel water base acrylic paint #20756 – English Ivy Green as my primary color. I also used white and black in order to lighten and darken this color as needed. You can really start with any primary color that you feel would make a good body of water (experiment a little!). Start with a lighter shade of your primary color on the outside edges of the pond/lake, and then darken it as you paint in towards the middle. The lighter shade gives the illusion of shallow water, and darker for deeper water. Don’t panic if you don’t think you got it right the first time, because you can always wait until the paint dries and try again. You can even add some small rocks, and other debris in the shallow end to enhance the detail.

5. Once you are satisfied with the painting results, and the paint is dry, smooth on a thin coat of Gloss Medium (I used “Mod Podge Gloss-Lustre”) with a larger brush or putty knife. It will look like white glue, so don’t get concerned. It will dry clear and leave a glossy surface that looks wet. Once dry, a second coat may be necessary (It all depends on if you like the way the first coat turns out). If you don’t like it at all, you can actually paint the pond again over the gloss medium and repeat step 5.

Good luck! I hope it goes well.

PS: More pictures of my layout can be seen at:

http://www.railimages.com/gallery/brucefottler