Building a canal. Tips?

[destofante]

I am about to embark in a new project: building a canal for some WW2 1940 scenarios. Think of Northern France, Belgium, Holland. Nothing too fancy, basically a (very) straight river with shallow, brick sides, probably in 6” or 12” segments. The intention is to have enough to go across my 6’ table.

For the side, the easy option is to go for the AnyScaleModels product:

https://anyscalemodels.co.uk/products/canal-bank-shallow

But what about the actual body of water in between the banks? I was wondering is some heavy cardboard would take well the special paint that Vallejo or others have for muddy water bodies. Alternatively… what? Foam strips? Plastic sheets? How easy are they to cut in strips?

Any suggested will be very much welcome!

[Pattus Magnus]

I would use a material that is unlikely to be impacted by moisture and is fairly rigid, such as 2mm styrene plastic. It is more expensive than cardboard, but it will last (not many things in model building that are more frustrating than building something then having it warp as soon as it soaks up paint).

[Digits]

Yacht varnish?   I used it for my simple rivers and£ it’s easy work?

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=146035.0

[Burgundavia]

I second the warping issue. I've done terrain on cardboard and other paper-like products before. Regretted it. You could do foamex/Cintra/foamed PVC - it is thin and doesn't warp. You can also get cheap/free offcuts from print shops too, depending on your part of the world

[snitcythedog]

I had Warbases cut mine to order from MDF.  They were a reasonable price and have held up great.  To mitigate warping I lightly sprayed a couple of coats of primer to seal it up before I assembled and painted it. 

[FifteensAway]

My material of choice is plywood.  And durable.  Its thickness can be an issue but not for this project using those banks.  Definitely paint both sides however.  But plastic will work and probably have a longer shelf life but you'll want to add non-slip material of some sort to the bottom; smooth plastic is slippery as heck.  As to the surface, I like plain old acrylic gloss medium and acrylic craft paint - and you can use said paint to tint the medium.  And water is very rarely blue - but you seem to know that given question about muddy coloring agent.

[carlos marighela]

I second the reccomendation of marine/yacht varnish either on ply or MDF (both need priming). Somewhere I have a whole 6X4 board primed, painted and varnished. Last I saw of it there was some chipping on the edges due to storage but no warping whatsoever.

Marine varnish will give you more bang for your buck thatn bespoke modelling solutions. Useful if you plan on a long canal.

[SBRPearce]

A bit of an "out there" suggestion: for the water surface, use  thin (2-3 mm?) plexiglas or acrylic. Paint it with the appropriate muddy blue-green water color on the underside and use clear Modge Podge or other acrylic medium to make subtle waves on the topside. Attach low brick walls to the edges of the acrylic, with terrain modelling to fair the surface down onto your table top.

No warping problems. Pricier than MDF or the like, but dead stable. A little self-adhesive felt on the undersides will keep the canal segments from sliding around on your table...

[Stevie-the-Gamer]

Have you considered the canal terrain from Frontline?

http://www.frontlinewargaming.co.uk/other_ranges.html

[Klingsor]

I used yacht varnish a few years ago and while it looked good it never seemed to dry properly, remaining tacky long after application.

I reverted to solvent based polyurethane varnish which leaves a glass like finish after a few coats and cures reasonably quickly, if not quite overnight then not far off it.

So my method for standing water is to paint it black then use torn bits of sponge to dab on various colours of acrylic paint then several coats of varnish. For the most recent toxic pools some of the colours were quite bright and garish. For a canal a light brown might do, it is years since I have been up close to one.