Step by Step, uuuuh baby....

Heyho once again!

This time it's time for a kind of step by step. "Kind of" because it was the first time I tried the thing I've done. So it's about.....(please make a drum roll with your fingers on your desk to build up some excitement till I reveal what's it about)..........(just a bit longer)....it's about....I'm really thinking about clouds, how beautiful they are...sorry got disattracted...it's about two component water effect (sorry to keep you waiting for it).

I bought the one from NOCH and it was the first time I used 2-component-water effect. So I read about it how to use it a while ago, and I remembered some of it but not the important bits.

Well I wanted to fill the bathtub of my Maulg with it and  I had to build a barrier so it doesn't run out of the tub. First I took a strip of masking tape to attach it to the tub so that the next coming tesa tape doesn't rip of paint when I strip it off afterwards. Now I  attached one strip of tape from the outside of the tub, made some cuts into the protruding part of it to attach it tight to the tub.

Same with the second strip of tape.

I attached a strip from underneath just to close every channel the water effect could flow through.

Then I prepared two strips to fit from the inside of the tub against the other strips so that the water effect doesn't touch the sticky side of the tape.

Attached some patafix and it was ready for Water effect.

So I followed the instructions in the manual, took one part of resin and one part of hardener and mixed them together. The good thing about the NOCH water effect is, that it doesn't seem to be a really exothermic reaction, meaning it stays cold. Welllllll but while stirring it, it became somehow really cloudy due to all the bubbles in there. I have to say that in the manual it says it is really liquid and after sometime when mixed together gets the consistency of honey. Hmm yeah right, the consistency of both the hardener and the resin was already like honey before mixing it. But I hoped that the bubbles in there would somehow melt together so that I could easily get them out of there after filling it into the tub. I filled it in the tub and waited a while. A while longer. Well the bubbles stayed where they are because they were ultra small and there were like millions of them. And due to the viscosity of the water effect and that the bubbles were to small, they didn't rise up to the top of the water...weak bubbles, be ashamed of yourselves!...At this point I asked the all knowing internet and found a tip from Crackpot first, but afterwards I remembered I've read it before in a comment by Grumbler. The tip really did it for me. And the tip was.....(again please make a drum roll with your fingers on your desk to build up some excitement till I reveal what's it about)...again a bit longer (yeah I know you're not doing it and just read on, but I still have hope for just one person doing it)....you have to warm up both components so they get really liquid. First I pured out the first try of water effect out of the tub into a beaker. Then I boiled up some water, filled it in glasses so that it wasn't boiling anymore and not too hot, then I filled the components into the little beakers but this time 3 parts hardener and 2 parts resin and put each beaker into one glass of warm water. 

While standing in the warm water I stirred them slooooowwwwly, geeeeennnnntly until they were really liquid. Then I mixed them in a beaker which was standing in warm water too. I stirred the water effect sloooooowly, geeeeennnnntly  so that nearly no bubbles occured and still the water effect got mixed properly. Sooo now it was time to fill the water into the tub. Everything went fine, no water leaked out anywhere. So I just removed the lonely bubbles with a thin wire and covered the whole thing so there couldn't get any dust into it while it hardens. I waited for three days, just to be sure that it gets really hard (in the instructions it says I only have to wait for 18 ours or so, but I wanted to be sure). During these days I checked the water effect from the first try and the rest of the second try in their beaker graves if they were hard, somehow they were hard but the surface was still sticky... after the third day I didn't want to wait any longer and stripped off the tape from the tub.

Tadaaaa eveything is looking sweeeeet:

Martin was around one of the days and looked at the water effect of the first try with the millions of bubbles in there and said "dude this looks like ice". Hmm it really does, and over a layer of clear water effect you could create a view from the side into a frozen lake for a base...awesome! Well I've seen this kind of base a couple of times, but if I remember correctly the ice has always been done with something else.

Well the water effect had an edge that pulled it self up the tape, so I cut it away and sanded it.

Now I wanted the surface to be clear again. I've read about hairspray to do the job. No hairspray in my house. So I just took some glossy varnish with a bit of water in it. Naaaaah I saw the brushstrokes, sanded it again. Hmm had some nail varnish....noooo not again brushstrokes, added some tamiya thinner to dilute it, didn't work, sanded it....I found some varnish spray....oiiii forgot it was matt varnish...sanded it again. So again I asked the all knowing internet. It said hairspray...got none...glossy varnish....must have done something wrong...and at last one component water effect diluted with water...got that,tried it and it was okayish. Well due to that I sanded it again and again, and due to the fact that the finest sanding paper I got is 1000 grid, I still was able to see scratches from the sanding through the 1K water effect...it was also really annoying to sand because the tub is only attached to the base with two little feets. One broke and the other one got damaged. I read later that jarhead said something about 12000 grid sanding paper for the second last step (don't remember with which grid he started) and for the last some tamiya polishing paste or so.  

The water is clear again, not as clear as before the sanding, but clear. When you hold it into the light you still can see scratches and parts where the 1K water effect didn't dry flat and made a bump. But I'm still satisfied with the result. And next time I think I know how to do it better, which doesn't mean I will...More pics of the Maulg are to be found here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/110256797700741183454/BadewannenMaulg 

Hope you liked this kind of step by step.

Till then make a drum roll with your fingers on the window!