Alcubierre Build Thread

Today I discovered that

1) the silver paint is not extremely well adhered to the decal film. I wonder if applying a layer of primer first would help (duh, of course it would! (I think))
2) The silver decals are not extremely well adhered to the rocket. A good coat of Future to seal everything down will be essential here.

I'll thank you in advance not to ask how I discovered these things.

another glitter flecking rocket, eh

Rub a dub dub?

neil_w said:

1) the silver paint is not extremely well adhered to the decal film. I wonder if applying a layer of primer first would help (duh, of course it would! (I think))

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Will be interesting to see. A problem I see with applying this technique to curved surfaces, at least to me, is that dried paint seems like it should be a relatively inflexible solid, and the thicker the paint layer(s) the more inflexible I would expect it to be. So I would expect it to crack. I hope I am wrong on this. Still Potentially great for flat surfaces like fins or for big tubes with large radii of curvature.

Hence my idea of precurving the surface, BUT I think you would have to “uncurl” the surface to get the decal off the backing. Maybe not if it is water slide type.

I was thinking Chrome Trim Monocote or Silver Mylar tape would work. I wonder though if Future Polish over either of those dulls the shine.

Wisdom comes from experimentation... so does frustration.

Might help if you took some 400 grit sandpaper to the decal paper, to rough it up, before spraying the paint. That will give the paper some "tooth" for the paint to hold on to.

BABAR said:

Will be interesting to see. A problem I see with applying this technique to curved surfaces, at least to me, is that dried paint seems like it should be a relatively inflexible solid, and the thicker the paint layer(s) the more inflexible I would expect it to be. So I would expect it to crack.

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I can only say that my painted decals were plenty flexible. Certainly, Rusto 2x might be less so, but I wouldn't expect cracking unless bending to very tight radii.

I was thinking Chrome Trim Monokote or Silver Mylar tape would work. I wonder though if Future Polish over either of those dulls the shine.

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The reason I did not go with Trim Monokote is simply that I needed to have the decals match some painted areas (that would have been extremely difficult or impossible to do with Trim Monokote). So it wasn't an option here.

lakeroadster said:

Might help if you took some 400 grit sandpaper to the decal paper, to rough it up, before spraying the paint. That will give the paper some "tooth" for the paint to hold on to.

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Interesting thought. If the decal paper weren't so expensive I'd gladly do some experimentation....

In any case, the silver decals are done for this model, and I'm hoping that with a coat or two of future they'll be fine.

If nothing else, they'll be good for some beauty shots before the first launch.

neil_w said:

I can only say that my painted decals were plenty flexible. Certainly, Rusto 2x might be less so, but I wouldn't expect cracking unless bending to very tight radii.

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I'm not always happy to be wrong, but in this case I am happy to be wrong. I look forward to trying this trick.

I am wondering if it would work with regular label paper as well

BABAR said:

I'm not always happy to be wrong, but in this case I am happy to be wrong. I look forward to trying this trick.

I am wondering if it would work with regular label paper as well

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I don't see why not.

I actually thought about that, and then decided to go with the clear decal paper because (a) guaranteed no white edges, and (b) easier to put on! I mean some folks might hate waterslides but trying to precisely apply stickers is way worse. Your mileage may vary.

Don't know if it would work as well with paper stickers, but for vinyl the "drop or two of dish detergent in water" trick works well. Allows repositioning of decals, especially large ones. You don't have to get it exactly right the first time. Many stickers have been wasted to obtain this information (like the Bothans). Cheers.

kuririn said:

Don't know if it would work as well with paper stickers, but for vinyl the "drop or two of dish detergent in water" trick works well. Allows repositioning of decals, especially large ones. You don't have to get it exactly right the first time. Many stickers have been wasted to obtain this information (like the Bothans). Cheers.

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One of many benefits of vinyl: waterproof. I would not try this with paper stickers, unless you want a handful of pulp.

I salute those around here have had success using sticky paper labels as wrap. I'd be very reluctant to try them on anything that required get-it-right-the-first-time precision placement. It's not *impossible*, just... difficult, and likely to result in utterance of inappropriate language (not that waterslides haven't elicited the same sorts of utterances on occasion... )

Beautiful day today, got my silver paint on:


I am not confident in my masking job on the pod nose cones, but we'll see how it comes out. I'm very excited to see what this whole thing looks like with the silver on. The ring pieces are fully painted ready to attach at this point. A small amount of additional paint touch-up will be required where the ring pieces meet the vertical fins.

Managed to get a gloss white base coat on my Deuce in the same paint session. Can I please remember to to use grey primer under white coats? Yeesh.

Did you consider painting the silver with a brush?

lakeroadster said:

Did you consider painting the silver with a brush?

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Could have, but my brush work is not great beyond small touch-ups. For this design it was a borderline call, but I feel pretty strongly the the results will be better with the spray. Just gotta hope that my masking tape held up OK.

neil_w said:

Just gotta hope that my masking tape held up OK.

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You are not one of those who ascribes to the “paint over the tape with the underlying color first” to seal the tape, modelers, apparently.

BABAR said:

You are not one of those who ascribes to the “paint over the tape with the underlying color first” to seal the tape, modelers, apparently.

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No. I have tried the Micromeister-recommended approach of applying a sealer layer of clear coat, since it is thinner and lays down flatter (less of a dam afterwards).

But in order to apply clear or base color beforehand I need to actually remember to do it.

Good-bye practice pieces, your work here is done.


Aw who am I kidding, I'm keeping the two best ones for just-in-cases. But I did successfully throw out 3 of the above 5...

neil_w said:

Good-bye practice pieces, your work here is done.
View attachment 378722

Aw who am I kidding, I'm keeping the two best ones for just-in-cases. But I did successfully throw out 3 of the above 5...

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Oh the agony of it all....

Unmasking silver paint creates an incredible mess. Flecks of silver end up everywhere, especially on the rocket, and then seem to have a decent static grip. It is not fun.

But the results are nice. Overall my masking was successful, other than a few spots where there gaps in my layers of tape, and spray got in:


Also quite noticeable in the first picture is the rather sharp dam that the silver pain creates. I didn't have much luck dealing with it on the nose cone, so I'm just gonna leave it.

I also haven't ever had much luck trying to remove excess paint, though I've tried all the suggested approaches. So instead I sprayed some more cranberry into a baggie and brushed over the excess silver, quick and easy.

Final result looks excellent:


Next up: at long last, the rings go on.

This would be an especially good reason to own an airbrush (cheap works well). Then you could use auto colors in very small quantities or buy enough to last a year or so. Do all your silver with auto colors. That paint is the cat's a** for silver or any metallic for that matter.

An endless amount of fitting and adjusting paid off (mostly) when attaching the rings. The first one (bottom piece) required a bit of pressure to keep it fully seated while the glue dried. I couldn't think of any reasonable way to clamp it, so I held this pictured position for about 15 minutes until I was confident the glue was set:


The other ring half fit more perfectly, and I was able to just sort of lay it into place, hold it for just a minute or two, and all joints were snug.

I hope those glue joints really are good, because there's almost no way to fillet these, with everything painted. After final touch-up I might apply some small CA fillets (like I did with the Ragnarok Interceptor build) to at least ensure that all gaps are completely filled.

Having now completed construction, I can look back and think about whether there was a better way to do the rings. I still can't think of any, although the way I did it here really was a lot of effort, and I still didn't get it perfect. I can say though (famous last words) that the piece of 1/8" basswood through the middle of the wings makes the whole pod connection area very very strong. As long as the rings don't blow off in flight I should be OK.

I am definitely glad I extended the fins to meet the rings at the top and bottom points, to give the rings it a little more distributed support (although that made getting the fit right so much harder). It looks fine with the silver at the top and bottom of each fin.

Next up: tail cone decals.

neil_w said:

Unmasking silver paint creates an incredible mess. Flecks of silver end up everywhere, especially on the rocket, and then seem to have a decent static grip. It is not fun.

But the results are nice. Overall my masking was successful, other than a few spots where there gaps in my layers of tape, and spray got in:
View attachment 378840 View attachment 378841 View attachment 378842

Also quite noticeable in the first picture is the rather sharp dam that the silver pain creates. I didn't have much luck dealing with it on the nose cone, so I'm just gonna leave it.

I also haven't ever had much luck trying to remove excess paint, though I've tried all the suggested approaches. So instead I sprayed some more cranberry into a baggie and brushed over the excess silver, quick and easy.

Final result looks excellent:
View attachment 378843

Next up: at long last, the rings go on.

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I am just curious if you ever considered using Silver Leaf for the detail areas?

Padseven said:

I am just curious if you ever considered using Silver Leaf for the detail areas?

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No, because I never even pondered that it exists.

I'm not sure how I could have reasonably done the all the curvy bits (especially the nose cones) with any sort of applied sheet material, though. Chrome Trim Monokote would have had the same problem.

Have you used silver leaf for anything remotely like this? I'm certainly interested to hear about how you'd do it.

neil_w said:

No, because I never even pondered that it exists.

I'm not sure how I could have reasonably done the all the curvy bits (especially the nose cones) with any sort of applied sheet material, though. Chrome Trim Monokote would have had the same problem.

Have you used silver leaf for anything remotely like this? I'm certainly interested to hear about how you'd do it.

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No I have never tried using it in this way either. I had never thought about using Silver Leaf on a rocket until I was looking through this thread. Your craftsmanship is amazing so I just figured if anyone had attempted such a thing it would be you. I actually have some Gold Leaf, maybe I will try a test on a nose cone and see what happens.

neil_w said:

... I couldn't think of any reasonable way to clamp it, so I held this pictured position for about 15 minutes until I was confident the glue was set...

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Dog like dedication to scratch building... well done.

What type of glue did you use.. and did you remove all paint / primer at the glue location?

lakeroadster said:

What type of glue did you use.. and did you remove all paint / primer at the glue location?

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It's TBII, with a standard double-glue joint. I had previously masked off the joint areas before priming and painting, so they were mostly bare. You can see the exposed wood in the pictures in a previous post. There's just a lot of variables in that whole glue situation regarding fit and flexing of the ring pieces. I *think* I got them on OK, won't know for sure until it flies.

neil_w said:

Having now completed construction, I can look back and think about whether there was a better way to do the rings. I still can't think of any, ...

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Hindsight is 20/20 as they say. One alternate method would be to make the ring continuous, and slot it and the fins. Orientation of the slots such that during flight the joint is forced together. Thus the glue joint loading would be minimal. Something like my crude sketch below.

Fantastic!!!!
Can't wait to see this in person.
Hope I don't drool on it,
like I did the IRIS-T, lol
So, tell us what do you have waiting in the wings, what's next??
We know you have something in the gray matter, itching to get out.

JJSR said:

Fantastic!!!!
Can't wait to see this in person.
Hope I don't drool on it,
like I did the IRIS-T

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Eww, so *that's* what that was.

Anyway, next build will be something I already have the parts for, which narrows it down. Probably Plasma Dart II, need to get back to working out the construction and decor details on that to prepare.

lakeroadster said:

Hindsight is 20/20 as they say. One alternate method would be to make the ring continuous, and slot it and the fins. Orientation of the slots such that during flight the joint is forced together. Thus the glue joint loading would be minimal. Something like my crude sketch below.

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I considered something sort of like that, but honestly I was too nervous to try it. If done correctly, it would definitely be very sturdy; I just lacked confidence I could do it correctly, at least on the first try. "Do it correctly" means getting all the cuts properly sized and aligned, without destroying the pieces. Thinking back on it, it probably wouldn't be as bad as I feared then, but too late to change my mind now. If I built another I'd probably give it a shot (note: I am not building another. ) It also turned out that fabricating two half-rings was a bit easier than one big one, but that wasn't really a motivator.

In the meantime, it occurred to me that the time to put CA fillets in was now, before paint touch-up, so it can soak into the wood. So that's what I did, a small bead of medium CA on the inside joints where the rings meet the wings. Should help at least a little.

[aw heck might as well fillet the fin/ring joints as well...]

Kick the tires and light the fires. If it does "eject parts" you can always do some "design enhancements" at that time.

It's an awesome design Neil, and an awesome build.