How To Build Rivers and Lakes

Article By Mike Fifer and the Albuquerque , Carnuel & Tijeras RR Copyright ©

Rivers and water falls can be made with Enviro-Tex usually available at Hobby Lobby or similar craft store.

River

In the photo above is my river and was done by painting the bottom as usual then mixing the Enviro-Tex with a few drops of food coloring in the mix to obtain the desired color. I used blue but you could mix drops to get blue-green and so on.

The food color will first appear to not mix but KEEP MIXING , and mix all the resin in the cup (scrape the sides of the cup and mix COMPLETELY).

Then I made a masking tape dam at the front edge of the layout , to contain the mixture and then I pour the resin into the river and save about 3 spoon fulls of resin. Then I tear apart cotton balls and stretch the cotton pieces out (in line with the flow of the river) and poke them down into the resin with the mixing stick lengthwise where I want rapids.

The cotton will absorb the resin and change color , if it doesn’t or doesn’t lay down , drip some more resin on the cotton.

After repeating this where you want , let the resin dry for 2 days then go back and dry brush white paint on the tops of the rapids as needed .

Then come back and add foliage to the sides.

The adjoining lake was made with ripple shower door glass and slides back for access.

There are many ways to create water scenes but this is my chosen method.

 

 

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