BoyPete wrote:

MadCow wrote:
I want to squeeze a tiny pond into my tiny garden - maybe a metre by a
metre and a half. A rigid liner of irregular shape looks good for
this but does anyone know how to create a hole that matches the shape
of the liner?

Nope! I struggled with this thought, and eventually opted to use a liner.

I couldn't find an answer to that problem, so I dug a hole that looked
about the right size, ltemporarily ined it with a cheap tarpaulin and
then lined it with slightly damp sand pressed to the walls.

By offering the liner to the hole. it left smooth marks where it touched
and undisturbed parts where it didn't. A stick could be pushed into the
sand to check how thick it was. I was aiming for a 1" lining of sand.

When an adjustment was needed, I lifted out the tarpaulin, tipped the
sand into a container, dug away some soil and repeated the process.

Eventually I was satisfied with the fit, so I removed the tarpaulin and
lined the hole directly with the sand and put some part way up the
walls. With the liner in place, I used poured dry sand between the liner
and earth in the hope that the gaps would fill properly. I tamped it
down with a suitable piece of wood to minimise the possibility of gaps.

It served us well for at least ten years before we moved, but I must
admit that our current house has a pool which I made with a butyl rubber
liner.