I saw one of those miniature waterfalls the other day and thought why not try it in a dio not the actual water fall itself but maybe use an aquarium water pump and place it under the base in some sort of container and run the hose to the start of the waterfall and have a little creek running through the scenery and have a drane camoflauged at the end of the creek so the the water would circulate. I have no problem figuring that out but what would i use for the stream bed do you think if you sealed plaster cloth it would be water proof and also will elmers white glue stand up to water after it has setup. Any comments will help.

good idea pfc, i have alctually thougt of this myself, but never had the inthusiams to do it. if i were you i would useplaster, make sure it has no holes or cracks wehn it dires and seal it with plaster glaize or any other stuff like that, even floor wax will do it.

good luck

matt

A trip to the hardware store to the 'paint/stain' isle. Get some polyurathane/water proof sealer. Add a few coats to the fully finished creek bed and you should be fine.

It will take some extra care later on. You'll need to stop the flow and check it periodically to make sure its still sealed.

Some epoxy paint would work too.......

Are we talking plaster like plaster of paris or will I be able to seal plaster cloth also this way it would be easier to form my creek banks and etc.

maybe fiberglass cloth, then cover it in resin, and paint away.
then coat with resin again...

like the bottom of a fiberglass boat

Hi Pfc
What may be worth your while is a visit to your local model railroad club/shop.I know of at least one layout here in the UK that uses real water when on display.You may find that someone there has seen/done a similar thing over there and can give you some tips.
HTH
Pete

One little thing to mention is that real running water can spoil a diorama, because it's absolutely "not to scale".

You can't adjust the color in order to achieve a natural look in combination with the surrounding landscape. Next to that the flow of the water can be controlled, but the way it rimples can't... since real water runs a different way in large volumes than it does in 1/35 th scale, things can look real unnatural when the dio is finished.

I don't want to spoil the fun here, but I just want to prevent a possible disappointment. By all means, please continue the research and try to pull this off. I hope you can prove me wrong with a smashing diorama with real running water. When you do, I'll be the first to say I was wrong

I've gotta agree with Eagle here. I think that 'real' water would ruin your dio.... not to scale.

"General Failure" created some fountain (running) water quite awhile back that was just lovely! I tried to locate those pictures for you but, haven't been able to do so. Maybe GF is listening or perhaps someone knows where those pics are?

i totally agree with eagle.i have considerd this myself and after watching small fountains we have in the house decided it woudn't look natural.also,not to put a damper on the idea,no pun intended,it would be odd to have actual movement on a piece were nothing else has motion.
all the power to ya if it works.

Ok - two thoughts on the subject. First, once you make your "stream-bed", you can apply two or three thin coats of Latex Rubber (like mold maker). Apply this to fiberglass cloth tape, and be sure to add just a bit of sand to the last layer. Once this is fully cured, you can come back and apply plaster of paris to make your terrain. Seal this with a varnish. You now have a very waterproof and realistic looking stream bed.

HOWEVER

You probably won't like the overall effect. In anything less than 120mm scale (1:16), normal flowing water looks "way out of scale". This is the same reason that the movie industry does their water scenes in a wave pool, and then slows down the film speed... otherwise the water looks like it is moving faster than the boats! I've done this before for a customer, and while it looked fine in the town square fountain, he also wanter water running down a sewer... no matter how much we increased or decrease the volume, it never looked right.

you can give it a try anyway, I mean, if you make a river with very little water flow, and placing plenty of those round rocks you find in a river, and paint it slightly blue/green with a little brown to make it look dirty (flowing rivers are never crystal clear and bring dirt with them) it could be done, but you would have to work on it hard enough.
It is very posibble to slow the flow of the water and make it more to scale by making the bed of the river almost leveled, and placing rocks in the middle of the bed, that would bounce the water around and make it more to scale. just don't get discouraged if you don't get the right effect, and keep trying

Something you might want to consider is using a light oil, like vegatable oil or something instead of water. I think it might give you a more scale effect... Not sure what a waterfall would look like with oil, but a stream or slow moving river... Also not sure if a normal pump would handle the oil... Well... Just a thought...

I dont think that pump noise would be a problem. I have a large pond with a 900 gallon pump powering a waterfall, but I dont hear the pump. I also have a tabletop water fountain, all you hear is the water trickle (which would add to realism)

My two cent's worth. Maybe make a resin stream...thick, like normal, and texture it like normal, but send a thin film of water or oil over the top of that then the ripples would be "to scale" but there still would be movement, and then of course, you could color the resin appropriately.

what a coincidense. I've came up with the idea to make a waterfall with real water just a couple of days ago and I thought well lets start a topic about it when I saw this one. I've started with a plaster 'coat' just 1 hour ago but isn't a layer of plaster waterproof? i'm also going to put a layer of the two component glue that is used for fiberglass boats on it with sand and stuff and after that a basecoat of matt black carpaint, hope that it will be waterproof ... it beter be hehe.. one little question.. what paint should you use for these kinds of dio's that will survive the water that is beeing pumped trough constantly???

I don't think you should really be concerned with the type of paint as long as you seal it with a water proof sealer. You can check the DIY stores or even a marien store that sells boating supplies.

yes, well i have two boats and i had one wich was like uhhm a normal boat that we've modded into a racing boat but in the stores that I come a lot i have never seen like a sealer that you can spray onto it, the only ones i know have a brown or yellow color and colors like that.. by the way i've just finished the plaster and i've already tried the pump out and it works really nice. i've now sprayed the whole thing black and it's now drying, but couldn't i just use something like hairspray??? or will that wash away in the water?

hey!!!@:) I just had an idea that might just work.. i saw my sister in the kichen and she was spraying her shoes... that stuff that u use to give leather for lets say shoes or a bag a waterproof coat against the rain. isn't that something? it doesn't harm the paint and it gives a great protection against water... if it can get a grip on the survace of the dio it would be great! hope it works...

Let us know how it works out this was just 1 out of 1,000 ideas in my head glad to see you give it a go .

Its a good idea but it would be expensive. Alot of stuff goes wrong.

hey i just tried it.. it seems to be alright but ill put the pomp in it for an hour and check how it looks then.... ill let you guys now if it works