After putting it off for nearly a year because of a CRYlon disaster, I finally asked the "Vixen" to scrape the blistered paint from my Semroc Moon Glo. The top 1 inch of the BT and the entire NC of the model was without blistering on the glow-in-the-dark paint, but the rest was terrible. After she finished sanding it I shot it with the same sublime green as I shot the Alien Explorer with--allowing the top 1 inch of the BT and the entire BNC to glow after being exposed to light.

CRYlon glow paint is very hard to use (for me, anyway) and isn't worth the trouble.

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__________________
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.

4 out of 3 people struggle with math.

Chemically, alcohol IS a solution.

NAR# 94042
SAM# 0078

Nice save on the Moon-Glo, kudos to the Vixen!!

Thanks! She loves sanding. I'm not kidding.

__________________
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.

4 out of 3 people struggle with math.

Chemically, alcohol IS a solution.

NAR# 94042
SAM# 0078

I have one of these birds in primer right now.

Any suggestions on GITD paint? I'd love to take it to a night launch.

Thanks.

.

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Dale Marshall, San Antonio Texas
NAR #90990
Semroc SAM #083

BAR Since 2008
Enjoying model rocketry since 1977.
The Spotted Dragon
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Krylon GITD rattle can is the only one I know about, but there may be others. I don't tknow if Testors has it or not.

Everything you could ever want to know is on the internet. AND it's all true!

__________________
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.

4 out of 3 people struggle with math.

Chemically, alcohol IS a solution.

NAR# 94042
SAM# 0078

just about need a blacklight on site to 'charge' the paint just before launch.
rex

The headlights of your car will do just fine.

Nice job on the the Moon Glo, Jeffy/Vixen.

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Retro-grouch

Thanks! It was fun.

__________________
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.

4 out of 3 people struggle with math.

Chemically, alcohol IS a solution.

NAR# 94042
SAM# 0078

DO NOT attempt to fly a rocket at a night launch trying to watch it/locate it using ONLY glow in the dark paint or even glo-sticks... They simply DO NOT give intense enough light to see in the air or on the ground, unless you stumble right up on it after landing...

We had a guy try GITD paint... luckily he put a little solid-clear plastic "lightsaber" or something or other glued into the rocket nosecone tip, the kind you twist to turn it on (to snug the button cell battery down against the contacts)... He kept the rocket "charged up" under lights (not sure what type) in the vehicle until right before launching... it was glowing well and looked great-- from a few feet away... he put it on the pad, 30 feet away, and it was BARELY perceptible in the dark at that distance, sitting still, IF you STARED STRAIGHT AT IT for a long time... THEN you could see it... look away, and then look back, and it was like there was NOTHING THERE until you stared for about 15-20 seconds and it gradually became barely visible again... (well, except for the LED "lightsaber" in the nose tip).

Then he pressed the launch button... it lifted off in a flash and streak of burning BP as it left the rod and ascended into the sky... at burnout, it completely disappeared... the gee forces had apparently compressed the lower battery contact springs enough to open a gap up between the button cell and the contact in the base of the lightsaber... the LED went out, and evidently the button cell wedged itself down enough that the "lightsaber" didn't come back on... in the air, the GITD paint was COMPLETELY INVISIBLE... the rocket deployed it's chute-- we heard that much, and we scanned the sky looking for it, to no avail... it was one of those that simply "disappeared" that night... This wasn't a small rocket either... it was a BT-55 tube about 2 feet or so long, with four fins...

Another that disappeared was a Blue Ninja equipped with a pack of glo-sticks snapped and the chemical's mixed, and then promptly taped to the sides of the rocket all the way round it using a wrap of masking tape at the top and bottom of the sticks... These were the "glo straws" type sticks, the ones about the size of a soda straw, not the big fat sticks that are about as big around as you finger...

Again, the rocket looked good in the prep area, and even looked pretty good on the pad... MUCH more visible than the GITD painted one, even when its little lightsaber was glowing (all 3-4 inches of it). The button was pressed and the BN lifted off on the sparking fury of the D motor... sailing upward in the darkness, it rapidly was lost to the eye after burnout... and never seen again...

Actively lighted projects were readily visible on the pad, in the air, and under parachute... I flew one of those spinning LED whirlygig toys with the plastic ring inside a clear plastic bubblle, equipped with LED's spinning and flashing in sequence-- looked like a UFO in the air and under chute... A club buddy of mine flew a Hi-Jinx with a clear plastic payload tube, into which he stuck a flashing, blinking LED "beer bottle" lapel pin, after turning it on-- looked great in the air and under chute, but we had trouble finding it after landing, which I'll get to in a minute... one of the other best looking "night rockets" was a simple Baby Bertha-- with the nosecone painted "hot pink" (flo pink) and then a "finger light" small LED type light securely taped into the hole at the base of the hollow nosecone... the light shone up into the nosecone and caused it to glow bright pink... Looked great, until the battery contacts opened under the gee forces of launch... Luckily they sprung back and made contact on the way down after parachute deployment and the rocket was found upon landing after a short search...

Since I own the farm, after everyone packed it in for the night, I spent another hour or two criss-crossing the fields with the golf-cart looking for lost night launch rockets... Dave's Hi-Jinx turned up when I got within about 15-20 yards of it-- it had landed with the beer pin facing downward at an angle, and was found by the LED's red light flashing and being reflected off the grass around it that it landed on top of... not visible from further away due to the weak nature of the reflected light... LESSON LEARNED: MAKE SURE YOUR LIGHT SOURCE IS "OMNIDIRECTIONAL" AND THAT THE ROCKET CANNOT LAND "LIGHT DOWN" AND BE IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND... had the Hi-Jinx landed not at an angle, but with the payload compartment flat against the ground, it likely wouldn't have been found at all...

The LED glowing nosecone of the Baby Bertha taught another lesson-- ENSURE THAT YOUR BATTERIES ARE "SHIMMED" TO PREVENT THEM FROM SHIFTING UNDER THE GEE FORCES OF LAUNCH, THEREBY LOSING CONTACT AND BREAKING THE CIRCUIT AND TURNING YOUR LIGHTS OFF... THIS GOES FOR SWITCHES AS WELL, ESPECIALLY SLIDE SWITCHES, WHICH CAN BE THROWN "OFF" IN FLIGHT FROM GEE FORCES... ENSURE THAT BATTERIES ARE EITHER ORIENTED 90 DEGREES TO THE VELOCITY VECTORS, OR SHIMMED "CLOSED". ENSURE SLIDE SWITCHES ARE ORIENTED 90 DEGREES TO THE ACCELERATION VECTOR OR THAT THEY ARE SECURELY TAPED IN THE "ON" POSITION! Sheer luck allowed this rocket to be found, because the battery spring managed to push the cells back against the forward contact in the LED, which then turned back on...

The GITD paint rocket was found after coming within about a FOOT of running it over and then very nearly stepping on it... The entire time, the GITD paint simply wasn't emitting enough light to even see it at one's feet... what caused it to be found was when it got jostled in my searching, and as I turned around looking behind me in different directions, I guess I bumped it enough for the LED "lightsaber" in the nosecone tip to "turn back on"... I picked it up and twisted the lightsaber a bit to turn it off, and stared at it for about 30 seconds, and if I stared INTENTLY STRAIGHT AT IT, I COULD see it, but JUST BARELY... of course under 'real-world' conditions after launching it, it's a small moving target hundreds of feet away in the air, or laying somewhere amid thousands of square feet of ground, grass, or whatever... the odds you'll be looking straight at it long enough to actually SEE IT on the ground are EXTREMELY SLIM and NONE... LESSON LEARNED-- MAKE SURE YOU LAUNCH ANY GLOW-IN-THE-DARK PAINTED ROCKETS WITH AN ACTIVE-POWERED LED LIGHT SOURCE AS WELL, TO ALLOW IT TO BE LOCATED IN THE AIR DURING DESCENT UNDER PARACHUTE AND ON THE GROUND AFTER LANDING... WITHOUT IT, YOU'LL NEVER FIND IT AGAIN IN THE DARK. Now, we're 45 miles west of Houston, and the light pollution from Houston does make the eastern sky glow orange like a furnace... but still we're pretty good as far as "light pollution sources nearby" screwing up one's night vision... BUT the simple contrast between sky and ground in those conditions make it near-impossible to find on the ground-- your eyes adjust to the brighter sky, which makes the incredibly weak light of the GITD paint simply impossible to see without staring directly at it long enough for your eyes to adjust... which is an IMPOSSIBLE way to search in a dark field! The ONLY exception MIGHT be launching at a VERY REMOTE site-- maybe in the desert or something, where there is nearly NO man-made light and the sky and land both are VERY dark, allowing whatever light source, even extremely WEAK ones like GITD paint, to be seen easier... but I wouldn't count on it!

If you want it to launch with only the GITD paint illuminating it, then have a "finger light" or something already turned on and attached to the shock cord to shine upwards and illuminate the parachute or downwards at the rocket body and ground/spectators below during descent to make the rocket more visible... the stronger the light source, the better!

The Blue Ninja with the Glo-sticks, disappeared off the pad under the brilliant "sparky" D12 flame, and promptly disappeared at burnout... it wasn't seen again, even after a couple hours of searching on the golf cart... it FINALLY turned up about four months later, after a particularly frosty night and morning, when I took a bale of hay down to feed the cows... Unfortunately by that point it'd been in the elements for months, cows trampled it, and it had been damaged beyond repair... from the location of it, I'd probably gotten within 15-30 feet of it at some point, but NEVER SAW IT... the grass was very short, so it SHOULD have been visible at that distance, and the glow sticks were arranged all the way around it, so it wasn't a case of "landing face down"... again, it was a matter of contrast... LESSON LEARNED: EXCEPT PERHAPS UNDER THE ABSOLUTELY DARKEST OF CONDITIONS, GLOW STICKS AND OTHER "UNPOWERED" LOW-INTENSITY LIGHT SOURCES ARE SIMPLY TOO "DIFFUSE" TO SEE EXCEPT UNDER "PERFECT" CONDITIONS, ESPECIALLY IN THE AIR OR ON THE GROUND IN A WIDE AREA WHERE ONE DOES NOT KNOW EXACTLY WHERE IT CAME DOWN... ALWAYS USE SOME SORT OF *ACTIVE, POWERED* LIGHTING SYSTEM TO SUPPLEMENT THE "UNPOWERED" LIGHT SOURCES ON NIGHT LAUNCH ROCKETS... EITHER DEPLOYED WITH THE CHUTE OR POWERED UP AT DEPLOYMENT IF YOU WANT TO FIND YOUR ROCKET AGAIN AFTER LANDING!!!

There ya have it.... Personally, I'd never launch ANYTHING at night WITHOUT an ACTIVELY POWERED LIGHT SOURCE (LED's, bulbs, strips, whatever) to produce enough light to EASILY be seen throughout the flight, at deployment, and during descent, and on the ground after landing... we had a deployment failure and the rocket came in 'hot'... fortunately it was a well-lit POWERED rocket, and while hard to see coming it at high speed, one without active lighting is IMPOSSIBLE to see, period...

Night launches are FUN, but they DO have certain things that work, and certain things that DON'T!!!

Later and good luck! OL JR

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I have seen some glow in the dark paint in bottle form. They have some at my LHS, it could be thinned for airbrushing but I have not had any experience with it. Maybe someone else has tried it. You may find some at craft stores like Michael's or Hobby Lobby.