The epoxy I used was made by Swing Paints. It is a fine finish quality epoxy of the kind you would pour over a large wood tree trunk slab that would end up as a table at a cottage....that type of finish. The product is called 'Nu-Lustre 55". There should be similar kinds at your hardware/paints stores.
I consulted the Swing Paints forum on their site and they said that it shouldn't be a problem with only a tiny amount of acrylic paint, even though their instructions say not to use any water-based products mixed with the epoxy. So, I figured I was okay, and the result is what you see.
When you squeeze one of those small plastic vials with the acrylic craft paint from Wal Mart, with the vial held at right angles to the floor, you would just touch a bamboo skewer to the paint and then begin to mix the two liquids that form the epoxy, resin and hardener. The paint tints it nicely, unless you are mixing a substantial batch totalling six cups, say. My batches were never more than about two cups because I like shallow pours and I only ever make small 'river' surfaces...otherwise it gets very costly.. So a swipe or two into the gob of paint that appears when you squeeze the tipped vial a bit, will be lots of tinting for the topmost of two or three layers that will comprise all the epoxy you intend to use. The amount of plaster powder would come to about 1/4 teaspoon. Mix really well (!) pour, let it find its reach on its own, but you can aid it by using the skewer to stretch it toward the far reaches...or just mix and pour another batch within about 10 minutes if it looks like you haven't mixed enough.
Crandell
selector Matthew, the last photo, just above, is what it looked like with the first two clear layers that I left as-is for about three years. I then added one more epoxy layer with the tiny pinch of the plaster powder and a half drop of Huader Medium Green from the craft paints at Wal Mart. Once that cured fully, I spread the gel gloss medium like a thin layer of mustard, and turned the brush on its side to stipple the gloss medium. Note that each of the layers, except the thin top layer of gel gloss medium, amounted to a thickness of about 1/4" or less, usually less. Don't pour depths of over 1/4" if you can help it because it may do weird things, or so I have read. Crandell
Matthew, the last photo, just above, is what it looked like with the first two clear layers that I left as-is for about three years. I then added one more epoxy layer with the tiny pinch of the plaster powder and a half drop of Huader Medium Green from the craft paints at Wal Mart. Once that cured fully, I spread the gel gloss medium like a thin layer of mustard, and turned the brush on its side to stipple the gloss medium.
Note that each of the layers, except the thin top layer of gel gloss medium, amounted to a thickness of about 1/4" or less, usually less. Don't pour depths of over 1/4" if you can help it because it may do weird things, or so I have read.
There was a video tip on here from the magazine and they used magic water and said that you can't use acrylics, that you had to use oil based...never heard this before
matthew
For this little creek, I just put down a layer of plaster over my plywood base and glued some broken rock casting pieces to it. Used craft paint washes for the rocks, letting the washes run and mix in the creek bed to color it. The water is just a few layers of Modge Podge stippled on with a foam brush. Cheap, easy, quick, and pretty effective.
Jim
"I am lapidary but not eristic when I use big words." - William F. Buckley
I haven't been sleeping. I'm afraid I'll dream I'm in a coma and then wake up unconscious. -Stephen Wright
Crandell:
Thanks for sharing your method. The contrast between the two photos really illustrates the effect of adding the plaster to the finish layer. The water looks just like the creeks I used to wade in as a boy.
Joe
Thanks, guys. Joe, I can't stress enough that I'm talking about a 1/4 tsp of the plaster powder in about two cups of the epoxy mixture, and I only do this for the topmost layer of two or three. In this case, I poured two clear layers and left it for about three years. I got tired of the artificial look and added the tinted and plastered layer over it, plus a fourth layer of the stippled gel gloss medium atop that last epoxy pour.
Note the look prior to the two top layers, both clear:
You have nicely captured the look of turbid water. To me it looks more real than the effect you get with just adding paint for color. I'm going to file our idea of adding a little plaster to the mix to use when I finally get around to adding water to layout.
Real nice, Crandell.
DC
http://uphonation.com
I prepare a vessel to contain the pour, even to the extent of using hydrocal or plaster of Paris. I paint the bottom and banks, and then make a least two pours of a two-part epoxy, a finish grade epoxy. I tint the epoxy and add a pinch of plaster of Paris to make it appear to be turbid.
The top layer is stippled gel gloss medium.
Mavryk I've used magic water only in a test making a small pond. Wasn't overly impressed. It was only one pour of roughly 1/8" deep, but was very bubbley. The water effects turned out nice, however. Was thinking of trying the water effects on the plaster water and seeing how that turns out. But for the price tag attached to magic water, I won't be using that again. Lorne
I've used magic water only in a test making a small pond. Wasn't overly impressed. It was only one pour of roughly 1/8" deep, but was very bubbley. The water effects turned out nice, however. Was thinking of trying the water effects on the plaster water and seeing how that turns out. But for the price tag attached to magic water, I won't be using that again.
Lorne
Sorry to hear of your troubles with Magic Water. There's a couple of important points about using Magic Water that may be of interest and worth repeating.
(1) The 2 part MW must be mixed really well before pouring. Not fast and hard, but a gentle stir until the mix turns clear again - no streaks.
(2) When teasing MW during it's last hours of cure, to get a texture, there's a point where it's cured too far, and more teasing will trap air bubbles permanently and the mix will start to cloud. Stirring/teasing 1/4 - 1/2 inch deep Magic Water at this point in the cure really made it bubbly and cloudy. For the surface texture, I kinda paint on partially cured MW (after about 12 hrs of cure) with a craft stick on top of the fully cured level pour, teasing and spreading it around about every 15 mins until it gets too cured. I have not been able to achieve a very high/coppy texture. The MW keeps settling a little. I use the gel (both medium and thick) to get more roughness and a higher chop where desired.
When I tried the MS Realistic Water, it lost too much volume and cupped a lot at the edges. I never experienced these long cure times with it, though, that others have reported. The cured Realistic Water was soft and scratched easily.
The cured MS Water Effects discolored on a test falls within 24 hours when I covered it with Magic Water. I have had no such reactions when using the Liquitex gel and Red Devil caulk with the MW.
doctorwayne The plaster and paint method is an alternative to resin-type "water" products, but you should choose the method best-suited to what you wish to accomplish. There's no single "right way" to represent water.
The plaster and paint method is an alternative to resin-type "water" products, but you should choose the method best-suited to what you wish to accomplish. There's no single "right way" to represent water.
I seemed to have missed this thread when it first appeared about a month ago.
I have just emerged from a 4 month ordeal using Woodland Scenics Realistic Water to model a river in an urban environment (the south branch of the Chicago River in downtown Chicago).
Admittedly, I brought this on myself by making the river bed too deep, requiring a 1/2 inch pour in stages. Woodland Scenics instructions call for pours at a depth of 1/8 inch or less and recommends no more than two pours. I poured Realistic Water in 1/8 inch or less increments, and it took 5 pours over a 4 month period, because it took as long as 50 + days each for two of the pours to clear.
Throughout this period, in addition to being tempted daily to tear it out and start all over, I often thought about just painting the Hydrocal river bed, just like the first time, followed by a varnished finish as an alternative to Realistic Water which I will never use again.
After reading this thread and viewing the photos, that is surely what I will do next time.
Rich
Alton Junction
I would think it would be easier to make the weaves and current ripples using either the gel stuff from Michael's or the wood side scenics gel, either way the thought being to paint on the clear gel on top of the final lalyer.
i have a test piece of blue foam that I try stuff out on and so far I have a pretty good mini river using sculptmold for the base and the magic water for the water llayer and then one of the gel products on top
Matthew, I understand where you're coming from there. I'm going to try this plaster method on my sectional layout soon. I've been thinking the past couple days about how I'm going to do this. Even though I'm not going to have a transition in my river, having the water look realistic is always a concern I'm thinking about.
For applying the plaster initionally, I'll use a putty knife to get the desired thinkness. 1/2 inch is what I think is used in the photos. Then i'll use a very soft bristle brush to get it smooth. For currents/ripples, I'll go to a stiffer brush to work the plaster up and create texture. For your transition I would paint both colors in the same sitting. Wouldn't wait for one color to dry so I can blend in the colors alot. I'm no river expert here, and I'm most likely wrong, but I would imagine the darker water (deeper) will have way more current than the brown water. Will be more texture there.
This is my opinion. Might be helpful. I tend to think things through a lot before I take the plunge. Can always try a sample board with various textures and paining techniques. See which appeals to you most. This way you can look at it from different angles, different lighting.
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
Thanks for all the details I guess I'm just getting a little too hung up on trying to make the transition in the water colors perfect or at least not fake looking...
Going from a river to ocean even on google maps actually looks fake, the harbor 15 minutes from my house is just a fairly hard transition from brown to really dark blue
im afflicted with a case of perfectionism that I need to get rid of a bit
Sorry, Matthew, but just photos of the bare plywood and of the finished "water". This was my first attempt at making water in this manner, and it seemed really intuitive, so I never though to take any in-progess photos.The paint I used was flat interior latex house paint, applied with a 2" or 3" brush. The muddy colour is the same dirt brown which I used over all of my plaster landforms and visible plywood, before applying ground cover, although for those purposes, it was thinned with an equal amount of water:
The plaster river was painted with unthinned paint, and likewise for the dark grey-green colour which represents deeper water. The same colour was used on some cut upholstery foam used for some background trees, as seen here in the lower part of the trees against the "sky":
If you wish to blend the colours together, apply the first colour, then, while it's still wet, apply the second colour, brushing right into the first colour somewhat. What I really wanted to show was the trail of silt which carries out into the lake, but the real one might extend for a couple of miles, so I settled for a transition between the muddy but fairly deep river water and the deeper and less cloudy water of the lake. Like much of the sleight-of-hand we perform, it looks best when viewed from eye level, while an aerial view often reveals the ruse.
I had originally intended to "cove" the joint where the "water" meets the "sky", and paint the colours of the water up onto the coved area, ending where the actual "sky" begins. However, I opted to leave the point of intersection at 90°, and then extended the colour of the lower "sky" onto the surface of the "water" instead:
Since I already had the plaster and latex scenery paint on-hand, the only additional cost for "water-making" was for the quart of clear high gloss urethane.
Wayne
Thanks do you have any photos of your colored paint job?
Specifically the part where you have a transition between the sandbar and the dark water?
im working on that part of my layout and your section there is the best I've seen!
Actually, the plaster is the "water". After painting, it gets three coats of water-based high gloss urethane to give it a "wet" look, and that's it. I used Varathane Diamond Wood Finish, applied with a 2" brush, with the recommended drying time (four hours) between coats. If you wait too long, the surface needs to be sanded before applying a subsequent coat. Ever try sanding water?
doctorwayne Thanks for your kind remarks, guys. The plaster and paint method is an alternative to resin-type "water" products, but you should choose the method best-suited to what you wish to accomplish. There's no single "right way" to represent water. Wayne
Thanks for your kind remarks, guys.
Love your water setup
do you have any pictures of the plaster painted before you added the "water"?
Thanks for your kind words, Mavryk.
I think a lot would depend on how rigid the supporting riverbed will be. Mine is on 3/8" plywood, but it's well-supported by 1"x4" open grid framework. I'd suspect that the lighter framing of a portable layout would allow too much flex, with the possibility of the thin (1/8") plaster flaking off. If your water area wasn't going to be especially large, a small expanse of 3/4" plywood wouldn't add too much weight and wouldn't necessarily require framing any heavier than what you'd normally use, as it would be rigid enough more-or-less unsupported.In fact, depending on the scene you've envisioned and if the water is meant to extend across the layout (front to back), the supporting 3/4" plywood could form part of the layout's framework, acting as both riverbed and layout crossmember.
Wow Wayne. That water of yours makes me wanna go fishing. Very realistic looking water. I have a quick question for you. I'm starting a sectional-type layout built for portability. Do you think your plaster water technique will hold up or is it more suited for a permanent layout?
DAP doesn't guarantee their products will not yellow. I've had DAP products that I have used in the kitchen and bath discolor on me in the past, and some that didn't. You might not be too happy if all your hard water work started to discolor down the road. Acrylic paint (splash and foam) doesn't like to stick to Silicon. Food for thought. Personally, I like Magic Water, Red Devil Clear Caulk and Liquitex medium gel. All those claim to be non-yellowing. I also recommend a good, durable clear coating. I like Krylon Crystal Clear. It's non-yellowing, also. Good luck, and have fun.
Matthew - it's good to know your test worked. Nothing wrong with taking pains to get it right, and if it were done wrong it would always be a disappointment. I hope it all goes well.
mike
Modelling the UK in 00, and New England - MEC, B&M, D&H and Guilford - in H0
mikelhh It doesn't matter if your high water mark extends beyond the poured water, just as long as the high water mark is consistent throughout the shoreline. That's the hard part. You have some leeway with a less than full tide, because anything submerged will be darker because it's wet, and anything not submerged, yet below high tide mark will similarly be darker. Your idea of a test pour sounds kind of drastic, but yes, it should work. I just winged it when I did mine, going for the ebb tide look. After pouring the resin I had to repaint rocks and shoreline down to the high water mark in order to level the high mark [line] Mike
It doesn't matter if your high water mark extends beyond the poured water, just as long as the high water mark is consistent throughout the shoreline. That's the hard part.
You have some leeway with a less than full tide, because anything submerged will be darker because it's wet, and anything not submerged, yet below high tide mark will similarly be darker.
Your idea of a test pour sounds kind of drastic, but yes, it should work. I just winged it when I did mine, going for the ebb tide look. After pouring the resin I had to repaint rocks and shoreline down to the high water mark in order to level the high mark [line]
Mike
thanks for your rreplying went ahead and did a test pour with just water and it was an invaluable test
i found out that I needed to add some sculptmold to the first half of my river, it was way too deep for that setting where there is to be boaters and a ddock my concern is painting and using coloring powders all to show low water marks, but have my pour be uneven, where in some spots the low water line is way ununderwater guess I'm being too anal but I live near a working harbor in Maine and I've got plenty of examples of how it should look