How to make rivers and lake water look real?

[Anonymous]

What is the best and cheapest way to make my river and lake water look real?

[hminky]

I have a web article about making a pond from a metallic cardboard party balloon at:

http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/scenery/ballon_pond/





Thank you if you visit
Harold

[Anonymous]

That looks pretty good

[nbrodar]

One of the easiest ways is to simply paint the surface black and feather some earth color in around the edges. Then apply several coats of acyrlic gloss medium to build up the shine.

Nick Brodar.

[selector]

I sealed a specific area with wood putty, painted it black and made the shore area lighter, and then used a two-part epoxy available at any hardware store to cover the water area. For a more realistic wavy look, use gloss medium over the dried epoxy, and dab the medium with tissues as it dries. It will be milky, but after it begins to set up, you stop dabbing, and then it will dry clear.

[Javern]

real is real, use REAL water! otherwise the fake stuff is just that, fake. Seal the stream and lake beds, mount an inexpensive fouain pump, have a plastic tank under the layout to hold water. Use aquarium additives to keep algae from growing.

[eng22]

Real water on layouts has been debated several times on this forum, the concensous always seems to favor NOT using real water. I would agree. In his post Javern describes a way to to do it, and given the right circumstances I'm sure it could work. However, it does not change the fact that your are using water at a 1-1 scale on your 1/87 scale layout.

[selector]

The scale of real water is all wrong for HO. It moves far to quickly (like about 20 meters per second!) on slopes, and, due to surface tension, will not ripple in the right scale. Unless you use distilled water, you will get scaling over time, with the resultant 'growths'.

It's a non-starter..leave it in the fountains.