I used those yellowish pellets that you heat & pour for some water a few years ago. It took a few years, but the whole surface cracked. Was wondering if there is an alternative to tearing the whole thing out & starting over. Was thinking about using some tinted gloss medium to coat it & fill the cracks & then putting a few coats of clear over it. Any thoughts?
Since heat was the originally melting medium, could you put a heat shield around your water area and use a heat gun to "remelt" the surface? I have never worked with the pellets, so not sure how much heat it took to melt them originally.
If you try this or other heating method on the layout keep a bucket of water available. A little mess is much better than a lost house.
Good luck,
It takes a lot of heat...enough to melt the plastic. It would destroy the scenery around it & it would probably crack again. Thanks
I would plaster over it, paint the surface the desired color and coat it with Gloss Medium, but that's just me.
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If the cracks aren't too bad, you could maybe hide them by using WS Water Effects to create some small waves.
Phil, I'm not a rocket scientist; they are my students.
Applying heat will re-melt WS E-Z water, and if carefully done, will soften it enough on the surface to smooth out the cracks. But you have to be careful not to set your layout ablaze.
How bad a job is it to tear the whole thing out? Sometimes that's the best thing to do. By the time you've tried a half-dozen ways to work around the old scenery, you could have completely replaced it.
Alternately, how steep are the banks of the "river" or "pond?" If you have a quarter-inch, you could paint over the old stuff and add a new surface over the top. I personally use Envirotex Lite, which gives a nice "still water" effect.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
The banks aren't steep. I'm going to try to save it before I tear the whole thing out. Too much scenery involved. I found some "MODPODGE" which I think is thick gloss medium. Maybe I could carefully brush a coat on to fill the cracks, paint it & add another clear coat on top of it.
jerrylI found some "MODPODGE" which I think is thick gloss medium. Maybe I could carefully brush a coat on to fill the cracks, paint it & add another clear coat on top of it.
Is this still, flat water, or does it have ripples and / or rapids? How deep are the cracks?
It is still water, rather like a swamp with a lot of detail around the edge. The cracks go all the way thru, but are very tight,& you can hardly feel them. Jerry
Envirotex Lite can be tinted with a few drops of craft paint. I do this with the deeper layers to obscure the bottom and get rid of the "clear as glass" look. Then I tint the middle layers just lightly, and keep the top layer clear. For a swamp, you can afford to add a bit more tinting, which will blur and mask the cracks below.
I'd do two very thin layers, maybe 1/16 inch each. Be aware that many of these "water" products will climb up the edges, and anything else which is "in" the water, like trees or grasses. You may need to touch up the scenery around the edges a bit.
If you can post pictures, I'd be interested in them. I'm thinking of putting a swampy area on my layout, and ideas are appreciated.
Why don't you just pour some more into the cracks to fill them?
The cracks don't go straight down. & can be seen from any angle & they are VERY tight. The melted product would harden before it got to the bottom of the crack & even if it worked, it would probably crack again...
I would try taking a soldering iron to smoothe out the cracks, then re-surface it with another product such as those suggested earlier. It only shoud take a think coat once you get the look of cracks out of the surface.
Springfield PA
The cracks are already smooth. You can hardly feel them. The problem is that you can see them.
You could try a small section with another product like the woodland scenics realistic water directly over the cracks and see if they hide. I would however clean the surface of the test spot in case dust or dirt accumulated in the cracks.
http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/Item/C1211/page/1
I was hoping that someone else that had the same problem had a solution. It seems like eventually they will all crack. That's why WS no longer sells it.