Seeing a reddit post about Vantablack, the world's darkest pigment ever created, makes me want to coat a table surface in the stuff and put my pew pew spaceships into outer space for real. Short of getting ahold of the famous stuff, there's the open source alternative: Black 2.0 , though at £11.99 per 150 mL it's a bit pricey. Still, no so-called "matte" play mat will do it for me after seeing this. No more hazy reflections or shine to mats at all. Imagine the possibilities!

I'll show you the Dark Side.

The problem with a vantablack play mat is portability.

Last I heard, it works by bonding carbon nanotubes to an aluminum substrate. Kinda hard to roll and unroll sheets of metal unless they are thin to the point of tearing ala aluminum foil.

Then of course there's the cost of making something so large. If I recall correctly, you have to flood the surface with a certain kind of gas and heat it very evenly for the nanotubes to form and adhere. You could buy a lot of ships with what it'd cost to make something like that. Never mind the licensing fees.

It would be the coolest possible mat ever though. The ship stands would look nice coated with the stuff as well. Against the mat, they'd be completely invisible to the human eye.

One thing I don't know is how durable the coating is. Carbon nanotubes are one of the strongest materials on Earth. But if even one of those carbons is swapped with something else the structure can literally tear itself apart. Maybe with such a thin layer that's not such a big issue? I know it's the major flaw inhibiting the whole space elevator thing.

2 hours ago, C6248 said:

The problem with a vantablack play mat is portability.

Last I heard, it works by bonding carbon nanotubes to an aluminum substrate. Kinda hard to roll and unroll sheets of metal unless they are thin to the point of tearing ala aluminum foil.

Then of course there's the cost of making something so large. If I recall correctly, you have to flood the surface with a certain kind of gas and heat it very evenly for the nanotubes to form and adhere. You could buy a lot of ships with what it'd cost to make something like that. Never mind the licensing fees.

It would be the coolest possible mat ever though. The ship stands would look nice coated with the stuff as well. Against the mat, they'd be completely invisible to the human eye.

One thing I don't know is how durable the coating is. Carbon nanotubes are one of the strongest materials on Earth. But if even one of those carbons is swapped with something else the structure can literally tear itself apart. Maybe with such a thin layer that's not such a big issue? I know it's the major flaw inhibiting the whole space elevator thing.

Well... making a cast aluminium duplicate of an ISD isn't *completely* impossible, just time-consuming and exceptionally uneconomical... it'd be a very very expensive vantablack ISD ;-)

Goshdarnit I want one!

I'm no artist, but the creator of Black 2.0 (linked above) sells the stuff as bottled paint. Unlike actual Vantablack, which is a patented process that is only done on commission by the owning company. Would Black 2.0 even work if just brushed onto wood or vinyl surfaces? I'm slowly talking myself into testing out a bottle of the stuff, and see what it would take to get a 6x3 coating.

12 minutes ago, Nostromoid said:

I'm no artist, but the creator of Black 2.0 (linked above) sells the stuff as bottled paint. Unlike actual Vantablack, which is a patented process that is only done on commission by the owning company. Would Black 2.0 even work if just brushed onto wood or vinyl surfaces? I'm slowly talking myself into testing out a bottle of the stuff, and see what it would take to get a 6x3 coating.

Well you've got to self-certify that you're not Anish Kapoor first ;-) (plus the Yellow from the same artist looks pretty special, you'd have to do a space guppy in that)

(edit; I've just ordered some from Stuart Semple. Comments below on what I deploy it on? Please do not comment on my total lack of self-control, I know :-D )

Ooh, share your results. I think a black-ship stand and a black surface for it to disappear into would be awesome.

Well it's an acrylic, so I am going to give it a try on a couple of ship bases, a piece of backing card... and since I really don't much like the ship, an Imperial Raider (now stealth mode), see how it responds to some edge highlighting and so on.

Do a 'going stealth' transition on a couple Phantoms.

4 hours ago, Nostromoid said:

what it would take to get a 6x3 coating

You could probably get away with doing the undercoats in a standard matte black, then give it a top coat or two of black 2.0. Save a couple bucks maybe, though I have no idea what the requirements are for that paint to really take effect, so this is pure speculation.

Well I had to order myself some Black 2.0. With another £4 for uk postage it is expensive but it will be worth it for my fully cloaked Tie Phantoms and some 40K Tau stealth suits.

I will see what it is like for large table areas but it may look too artificial. Obviously any dust, scratches or finger prints will soon degrade the effect.

40k Tau stealth suits would be great painted in this.

Still hasn't arrived yet... indeed I don't think they're posting it until Wednesday... but I am looking forward to it.

On 03/04/2017 at 5:25 PM, Mad Cat said:

some 40K Tau stealth suits.

who cares about stealth tau? GO DEATHWATCH!