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Pouring the resin creek was a big milestone, and a little scary. You've seen the test pours I've done, and I learned a lot from them. I'm very happy with the final result. The fish, geese and ducks seem to like it, too! Here are a few shots of the now-finished creek.
I said last time that I would probably wait until March to do the pour, since the resin requires a minimum temperature of 73 degrees all thru the curing process, which is about 5 days. But I bit the bullet and cranked up an oil-filled radiator space heater in the train room. What I didn't know when I started is that there would have to be 2 pours, because the back side of the waterfall wasn't sealed well and was allowing the resin to leak from the upper area of the creek to the lower, and the level kept rising into the lower end as I tried to fill the upper. So all told, I had to hold the higher temperature in the room for about 2 weeks, allowing for a seal coat of a clear gel product to cure on the rocks before doing the second pour. Thankfully, it all worked out well in the end. I'm also thankful to be on budget billing with BGE! That little heater really sucks up the power.
Here are some in-process shots. The fascia is dammed up, the electrical controls are removed, and it's ready for the pour. You can see I also slung a tarp "diaper" underneath, just in case the worst happened (it didn't), and the room temp is at 75 degrees:
With the pours complete, the dams are removed, and the exposed faces are wet sanded. The white spots are air bubbles that still have some sanding dust in them:
After sanding, a very thin coat of a fast-cure resin is brushed onto the faces to restore the gloss and transparency, and fill any tiny voids. The fascia board is shown here primed and ready for paint. All of the vegetation in the first few photos is yet to be added - they cover the gloss from the resin that crept up the banks (which was expected):
