I had an open area on the layout that I decided could use a little lake, so my son & I conspired over the past several days to make one.
The basic landform is plaster-soaked newspaper over a base of wadded-up paper. The lake surface is the cardboard backing of a paper notepad, glued to a scrap of corrugated cardboard for some stiffness, laid on a couple of wood scraps.
I've used a mesh of cardboard strips on other parts of the layout as a hardshell underlayment, but prefer the more undulating surface the wadded up paper provides. A layer of ground goop smoothes over any overly un-natural creases & edges.
The lake was made by painting the cardboard with cheap black craft paint that I had on hand, coated with Modge Podge that I stippled with the end of a small sponge paintbrush.
There's actually two layers of Modge Podge on the lake. The first layer was applied a little thick in places and didn't dry completely clear, so I just painted over it and applied another coat.
Total investment thus far: 39 cents for the paintbrush. Next we'll need to go out and collect a bunch of twigs and make some forest.
I was struck by what pleasing results can be had with little to no capital investment. Achieving decent scenery on the cheap frees up budget space for that one more locomotive that you don't really need but need anyway.
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
Really well done! Nice job. It looks windy out there, but very natural.
Looks good so far. Just add some trees, a couple of fishermen or critters getting a drink and you are done. Please post completed photos when the time comes.
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
My only concern is having a pond half way up a slope doesn't seem completely realistic. If water did accumulate there, it would eventually break thru the ground below and run off...possibly taking some of the track below along with it.
Nice job on your lake. I have seem farm ponds across the north east that really have no rhyme or reason for being there. There seems to be no inlet like a stream or brook feeding it or egress. I assume they are spring fed because they seem to be filled with water year round. Also I have seem pictures of near record breaking bass and pickerel caught in farm ponds. some right where I live!
wjstix My only concern is having a pond half way up a slope doesn't seem completely realistic. If water did accumulate there, it would eventually break thru the ground below and run off...possibly taking some of the track below along with it.
I would agree it would be unusual to find such a pond in nature but man made ponds such as this are quite common in my area. Earthen dams are built into a slope to capture water from spring fed streams. My suggestion would be to add a small stream running into the pond and either an overflow pipe or a spillway to take water out. A spillway would have to be made of rock or concrete otherwise it would erode away the earthen dam. A pond that doesn't have fresh water running into and out of it will soon stagnate and be overrun with algae. Even some stream fed ponds have this problem if the pond is too big for the amount of water flowing into it. My neighbor had such a problem and solved it by installing a windmill which pumps air into the pond through a hose. This oxygenate's the water and helps prevent algae buildup.
Such ponds serve a dual purpose. The obvious one is the asthetics. The other benefit is you'll get a break on your homeowner's insurance. We don't have fire hydrants out here in the country so if you have a source of water for the fire departments to pump water from, you'll pay a lower premium. Of course, as a former co-worker who served on a volunteer fire department told me, they were real good at fighting basement fires because often that was all that was left by the time they arrived.
wjstix... having a pond half way up a slope doesn't seem completely realistic.
I've seen plenty, even large lakes elevated on the side of a hill or mountain, in the Appalachians; lots of them probably are spring fed.
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=38.229685,-79.82254&spn=0.032633,0.062313&t=h&z=14
Very nice. I just tried the WS water today, and hope it comes out good. If not I might try your way next time.
"Rust, whats not to love?"
I accede to those assertions that my little pond isn't completely "geologically correct." The intent is to use it to visually separate the upper & lower track levels, and make it into one or two mini scenes with creative use of trees and other distractions, so that the viewer will be drawn to the scenes and not to the fact that the pond is in a hill and the water neither comes from nor goes to anywhere. Kudos to those who rang that up right away, though. Nice catches.