Thought I would share my latest project since I have gotten so much help from this forum and hopefully this might help someone else. Little history. I have a 3/4 acre pond that has leaked for about 7 years. I have drained and reworked and that helped but still leaks.I think I know where it is leaking so I bought one unit of soil floc from TJ but haven't had time to get it down. If that doesn't work I think I will do the same thing I did on this project.

Current project history:
I bought a used skid-steer about about 5 years ago and decided I should test it out and decided to dig a small hole in the bottoms about 40 ft from a creek but the creek is about 10 ft lower. Not the best place to dig a pond but with a new toy who cares right? Well about 7 ft I hit a foot of sand and then water table. It has never held since it was built. Couple years ago I thought since it was leaking in the bottom I would just line the bottom thinking the upper soil was better. It worked great where I put the 40'x60' black/grey tarp from Menard's but would drain down to top of tarp. I let it go for awhile and let the frogs take over but this year I decided to try to line it all the way up with billboard tarps. I used HH-66 glue that I bought from this site to glue the seams.

http://www.sailrite.com/HH-66-Vinyl-Cement-Gallon

After all of the work I have done on it, it ended up being about 90'x90'. The tarps I bought off Craigslist. I originally thought it would take 12 but ended up only using 9. At $30 bucks a piece that's $270 plus about $100 in glue and 3 inch paint rollers. Total of $370. The tarps are about 15'x 50'.
They seem pretty tough and held up well with the skid-steer running them over during the burying process. Straight back and forth no spinning the machine. I did raise the water level more than I thought I was going to because it looked better so some areas the water is above the tarp. With that being said it might seep out in those areas but so far it seems to be doing really well but its only been full a few days.I am posting a link to the pictures I took so you can see the results and steps that were taken to install them.


http://s645.photobucket.com/user/jason7858/library/Small%20Pond%20Liner?sort=9&page=1

I really dig the DIY approach you took and the results look good.

Thanks quarter. The kids helped a lot and it really didn't take too long. 1.5 hrs to lay the tarp and about 5 hrs to cover but it would have been much quicker if the banks weren't so steep. We had to cover most of those by hand because the bobcat would probably be too much on the liner at that grade and the bobcat wouldn't have enough traction on the liner at that grade either. It was really wicking up the banks a few days ago and it was going down a little each day, now it is slowing down and you can see the banks drying out some. I think it will need a few up and downs to pack some of the loose cover material.

Great idea Jason thanks for sharing. How has the water level stayed since it was initially filled?

Thanks skullet. So far it is doing great. It stays about 6 inches from full pool a week or so after a rain. I believe this is due to the concrete inlet/outlets I put in. I think it seeps underneath them. I raised the original level anyways so it stays where I want it. I nailed about a two foot square piece of the material to a tree so I could see how long it takes for the material to start to deteriorate. I figure if it last two years in the sun and weather I can multiply that by 10 since it is under 8 inches of dirt and will get no uv rays (it is uv protected though) and temperature should stay consistent. I will definitely keep this post updated if I see any negative issues going on but so far so good. The wife wants me to do the larger pond now. Think I will hold off for awhile and see what happens. If I did it again there might be a few modifications I would do.

1. Go higher above the final water level more than what I did. Might have a few places where liner is just below full pool. That could be contributing to the 6 inch below full pool issue I mentioned.
2. Should have made it bigger by lessening the slope of the banks. This would have made it easier to cover the liner with the machine.

It's been a few years since you've installed the tarps. I'm curious to hear how it is holding up.

This post does include an update by jason from August of 2019

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=39199&Number=510026#Post510026

Sorry everyone. Been awhile since I've logged in. It is holding up just like the day I installed it. The piece I nailed to a tree to keep an eye on has not degraded at all either. That is in in partial sun. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Where did you get the tarp? an idea on what they cost. Contact number for the tarps? Sizes? How is that for questions? I have a spot above my pond where I would like to have a forage pond but it's all sand down to 15'. Any idea on how to add two tarps together for a little larger pond?
OOPS, I found out the answers by going back and looking over the older posts? Thanks for the information.