Just got back from Michaels and found a product called Quick Water for Silks. Its used as simulated water in clear flower containers and comes with 2 6oz bottles to be mixed together. The "A" bottle lists only METHYLENE but nowhere is anything else listed! In the flower containers it looks.....well....clear as water, no bubbles or fogging tight to the sides,cleans up with denatured alcohol,seems perfect which worries me(to good to be true) plus its less than half price of other water products. So I throw it out to the gang, any thoughts?
Found this on their website Our artificial water is better than acrylic water as it is guaranteed not to yellow and will set up in half the time. made with polyurethane technology it withstands the UV rays that cause other acrylic water to oxidize and turn yellow in color. View our other products below such as artificial dirt and quick arrange floral foam. Sounds OK, who wants to be the guinea pig ? LOL ......Mike
Thanks for the info Mike, I went to a couple of other "craft/hobby" stores today and a they all have different types of water products for flower displays. My main concern is that it wont dry hard and will remain tacky. Oh well I guess Ill just have to jump in......(bad pun).
What you have sounds like something I bought at WalMart called "Acrylic Water". It is also two-part, clear, used for setting fake plants in vases. I thought that it might make an acceptable model water, and tested it along with "Triple Thick Glaze" that I bought at Hobby Lobby. Both of these lakes are single pour: The one on the left is the glaze. It looks good, but shrinks while drying, leaving a very glossy but uneven surface. Might work well for moving water, but it is so thick that getting the edges right is a lot of work with a toothpick! On the right is the acrylic. It is slightly flexible but not tacky when it sets up, so I don't think that cracking is a worry, but oh, my gosh does it ever bleed into the scenery! I suppose if you modeled the water base first, then added out-of-the-water scenery after the water sets up it would be okay. I'll try that next. And anything that you have sticking out of the water, like my half-sunken log, will get a nice glossy coat.
Think I will give it a shot- my little n layout is pretty much an exercise in tryin out new stuff anyway:sweat:
Or, you could try it on a small scrap parts mock-up, at the work bench. That way if things don't work as planned, you can just toss it in the circular file
Yeah, I've learned the hard way to never try anything new-to-you on an existing layout. That's why I tested these on a piece of scrap foam first.
I would only pour it into a prepared 'vessel', a shallow indentation or scrape prepared to suit your desired shape and size of water body. Let it cure with the defined edges, and then encroach on those edges with a finished shoreline using suitable materials and ground foam shrubs, etc. It will be a much better result than doing the bulk of the shore and scenicking first, and then hoping against hope that the 'water' will not wick for several centimeters into the littoral that you have crafted. Set boundaries for it first, let it do what it wants, and then cover the undesired wicked part with your shoreline material. Saves cost, time, and materials.
OK so pour first, scenic later. How about shore line? just let it creep like real life, might just look very cool! As for the people,boats & dock should I cut them down, have them ready and stick them in just as it is starting to harden? the base is sealed and coated with latex paint, black center, dark green then earth color at the shore line.
I would not cut down anything that can't be inset into the depth. The idea with almost every water producing medium is to do it in a number of shallow pours, say in the 1/8" range, maybe up to 1/4". People lament about all sorts of problems when they come here and on other fora saying their water is doing this, or not doing that, and it turns out they poured 3/4" deep. Prepare a define lake or riverbed with shallow banks, say in the 1/2" range, seal it, paint it, place some 'rocks' of pea gravel along the bottom. Then pour in at least two sessions, but being sure to keep dust off the first by covering it carefully (sticks across the pour and cardboard or newspaper over the sticks), and also letting the first set up for about 18-24 hours. Then do the second, and third as you need them. Note that you can add colourants and turbidity-simulating products to the water, and you might wish to experiment with making the surface wavy or broken up due to wind drifts and squalls. For example, I added a bit of Hauder Medium Green from the Wal Mart acrylic craft paints and a pinch of plaster of Paris for turbidity, except my 'water' was a two part finish quality epoxy. I have a photo below of the water as it looks outdoors on my diorama, and another effort from my last layout. For the top surface, I stippled a thin painted layer of gel gloss medium (looks like Nivea cold cream) across the cured surface of the epoxy and let that harden. Thicker wavetops will take up to three days in some circumstances to go from white to clear. Be patient. Here is the layout water: Here is the diorama imaged shortly after sunrise:
