Woodland Scenics Realistic Water (#C1211) a first use

[Wolf]

Hello everyone,

 

i wanted to share my first hands on on "Woodland Scenics Realistic Water". As a sort of background from me, I never have cast water with regular resin, so it might be some assumptions are simply wrong.

 

As I am in the process of removing some damage from one of the modules that @Sir Madog had garciously given into my care, i was in the need to figure out how to do a little river. As I had planned to use the name giving product at a later time for a planned own modules with rice paddies, i just took what I had (and gave it a testrun in the process).

 

Reasons I picked Realistic Water:

 

- its supposed to cure clear and smoth

- it is not a 2 component resin, you just pour and airdry

- its supposed to shrink at a minimum

 

Stuff I was aware of that woll annoy tf out me but I used it anyway

 

- its liquid. And I mean like REALLY liquid

- it has a harden time of 24-48h

- it has a max casting depth of 2-3mm

 

 

So when using it I can confirm its luiquid as hell. I tried to seal the underlying pebble riverbed with modpodge solutions as good as I could, and still basically the fiest cast completely sipped away inside the pebble stones. A word of advice on pebble riverbeds: the pour will push out A LOT off air bubbles from in beetween the pebbles, and as liquid as it may be, air is not really able to escape. I sat at least an hour there, brushing out with a small wodden pick all air bubbles i could find.

 

Otherwise it hardens slow. VERY slow. A 2mm deep cast will still be wobbly after 24h (carefully with fingerprints when testing!).

 

The upside is, it is indeed curing clear and near polished smoth, wich was exactly what I wanted (crystal clear very calm mountain river). Also, the layers of casting seamlessly connect, i am so far not able to make out a "connection" beetween the layers. Also, as for it to be liquid as hell, even a Fingerprint was not really an issue to "cover up"

 

There is one thing adverted that I do not feel its living up to, and that is shrinking. Its advertised as "minimal shrinkage" and I hoped with a few casts to be done, but on a 2mm pour i would guess shrinkage to be at least half a mm up to 1mm. This might again be the pebbles "eating" some material, but i would advice anyone not to bet on the shrinking part.

 

All summarised it got the job done perfectly. I didnt use tints, but its supposed to work well with them. As I read about resin heating up, and fuming, and having a little daughter running around, I would probably always go back to this product instead, although the price to pay is the time consuming process.

 

Hope this little summary will be of help to someone, I had fun trying it out, and am happy the Module is restored to glory.

 

Edited July 27, 2022 by Wolf
Attached Pictures

[Tony Galiani]

I see you avoided the mistake I made - it looks like you have sealed the ends well.  I tried this water and thought I had done a good job of sealing the ends but I guess not.  I ended up with very little water on the layout and quite a bit on my workbench!

Ciao,

Tony Galiani

[Sir Madog]

I found out how liquid that stuff is the hard way - after it started dripping on the carpeted floor. Needless to say I got some choice words from SWMBO!

Next time I used silicone sealant. This was the result:

 

 

 

[cteno4]

Silicone sealant for sealing the ends of the pour or sealant for the water?

 

jeff

[Sir Madog]

9 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Silicone sealant for sealing the ends of the pour or sealant for the water?

 

jeff

The ends of the pour!

[Wolf]

Just quick update on the shrinking:

 

The shrinking is bad. Its far more than expected from the advertiesement. It would probably be fine on a flat surface where all shrinks evenly, or if you would now add waves on top (where it actually would do nice as a sort of actually wanted effect), but as i wanted silent, clear water, it leaves a bit to be desired. It still looks great, just does not work out as an even, mirror'ish surface.

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by Wolf
Added finished Picture

[Sir Madog]

6 hours ago, Wolf said:

It still looks great, just does not work out as an even, mirror'ish surface.

That matches my own experience. That stuff is OK for a rock-filled stream or creek, but not for lakes or sea shore applications. I used high-gloss varnish for this in previous layouts.

[marknewton]

Wolf and Ulrich, that's an attractive scene on the module. You've both done a nice job on it.

All the best,

 

Mark.