Idea for Lab Journal Gustave

[psyxypher]

Alright, so after watching a bit of a video, I had an idea about Lab Journal Gustave. The Journal details using the CVD machine to coat objects with carbon and metallic hydrogen to give them a diamond coating. I was wondering what it’d be like if the scientist in question had been a specialist in various supermaterials, and coating objects in them.

http://www.hydrogenlink.com/ultrahydrophobic

For example, in Labs you could find types of Ultrahydrophobic powders that you can use to provide wet protection superior to normal waterproof clothes. This would have to be sprayed onto equipment using either a CVD machine or some kind of chemical sprayer.

Another idea would be an old idea for tailoring metals onto clothing. Perhaps you could spray Superalloy onto clothing to armor it like we spray Hydrogen onto clothing? I was under the impression that Superalloy was flexible because it was a titanium/memory plastic blend. However, given the issues with superalloy’s creation process, this may not be possible.

This was a spur of the moment idea it took me eight minutes to write, but I feel it had some potential. What does everyone else think?

[kevin.granade]

That is an interesting idea. As you point out, hydrophobic coatings are used irl, that one is a no brainer.

Metallic coating doesn’t make sense though, when a metal is described as very flexible it means something like it can be bent by a few more degrees without breaking, not that it can conform to arbitrary folds.

[kuros]

Fascinating suggestion. Hydrophobic sprays could also be available in cans, the way they are now.

I can’t imagine how coating a surface in a metallic particulate would be useful. The hydrophobic sprays are a gelatin that bonds to each other to create a non-porous coating. Any metallic particulate in a spray process would be doing the same thing – the way that mirrors share more properties with glass than with silver.

I suppose a metallic spray coating might increase Cutting resistance slightly without further science being added to the mix, but most other damage resistance aspects of metal seem to come from their rigidity.

Now, if you replace “metal” with the word “polymer,” a lot of my objections go away. I bet that says more about me than it does about material engineering, though.

[psyxypher]

I was working off the idea that some superalloys (as in real life ones) are applied via a spray coating. Given the nature of CDDA’s superalloy, I wasn’t sure if it’d work.

Though the Hydrophobic spray is getting good reception. Now if I could find other fancy materials to coat objects with…

[druidniam]

spray coating

That’s called “powder coating” and it’s mostly used to to coat an alloy to a harder metal that needs either structural support under extreme load conditions or an alloy that has extreme thermal dissipation properties, like a nickle-vanadium layer on a carbon steel shaft in a jet turbine to prevent it from melting from the extreme temperatures.

[tarburst98]

currently the problem with ultrahydrophobic material is it’s not healthy to flesh, since flesh is mostly water. remember a video showing off how a ketchup bottle would work if the inside was hydrophobic, and it slid out super easily, problem is it’s now tainted and unfit for consumption. so yeah i suppose you can say cata-science made a safe hydrophobic material.

also for clothing the best ‘cloth’ type would be woven nanotubes. you can sew with it because a needle simply parts the threads rather then trying to cut through the threads. so like, anything with a cotton component could have a “replace with nanocloth” enhancement thing, vastly increasing cutting and piercing def with no extra encumbrance, as well as extra warmth due to an odd property of nanotubes where they are conductive through the tube, but insulating across the tube. hard part is getting enough of it for even one piece of clothing, let alone a full outfit. greatest use of it in game would be tricking out a thermal-electric outfit.

[darktoes]

That’s called “powder coating” and it’s mostly used to to coat an alloy to a harder metal that needs either structural support under extreme load conditions or an alloy that has extreme thermal dissipation properties, like a nickle-vanadium layer on a carbon steel shaft in a jet turbine to prevent it from melting from the extreme temperatures.

That sounds like a good reason to add the ability to CVD machine clothing/armor with a material that protects against fire and/or increases temperature resistance.

Even if spraying clothes with metal wouldn’t neccessarily be helpful, a spray coating that improves the armor rating of armor/clothing would be pretty cool, and would make sense game-wise.

[druidniam]

In practice you can spray coat a layer of metal that’s measurable in microns, so I don’t see why you couldn’t finagle a way to get it to work with clothing. The biggest hurdle is the heat requirement to get the metals to bond. You’d incinerate anything outside nomex at the temperatures needed for even some of the baser metals and compounds. We had a demonstration done for us waaaaaaaay back when I was in school, and even just powder coating bronze onto a steel shaft meant to fit into a bearing required the shaft to be at a temperature of 400F and held there while the powder coat was applied. The coated layer WAS only 5 microns thick even tho to the naked eye it looked like a solid sheet of bronze had been wrapped around the shaft.

Edit: Actually, you can electroplate a wide variety of things, and i think that includes cloth that’s been treated with a solution. I’d have to research it more, but I think that’s still a thing. Electroplating is just sloooooooooooow.

[kevin.granade]

You can micron-coat clothing in metal, but what are the applications? One micron of metal isn’t going to get you any measurable cutting or bashing defense for example.

[druidniam]

You can micron-coat clothing in metal, but what are the applications? One micron of metal isn’t going to get you any measurable cutting or bashing defense for example.

If anything you’d turn your shirt into a conductor for electricity I’d think. Which is a bad idea.

[Solusphere]

If anything you’d turn your shirt into a conductor for electricity I’d think. Which is a bad idea.

Not really, having your clothing be highly conductive means that electricity is more likely to flow through it than through you. That’s why they get people to wear chainmail when operating near powerful tesla coils and the like. You’re basically turning your body into a Faraday cage.

[druidniam]

That’s why they get people to wear chainmail when operating near powerful tesla coils and the like.

Chainmail is not PPE for a tesla coil no matter how many videos you’ve watched on the internet, and that would only apply to high VOLTAGE discharges which have a direct path from the chainmail to the ground. Shockers put out high amperage attacks from what I understand, which would just fuse the chainmail to your skin while you cook.

[Solusphere]

The blasts from shockers only do minor damage, but they cover a wide area and stun you temporarily, which seems much more like a high-voltage charge than a high amperage one. They also don’t set anything on fire.

As for PPE, the suits worn by the workers on power lines, which are both high amperage and high voltage, work on the Faraday suit principle, being completely body-encompassing and using a mesh of steel fibers and fire-retardant fabric.

Source here: https://curiosity.com/topics/why-do-power-linemen-wear-metal-suits-curiosity/

Both resistive and conductive clothing are valid approaches to avoiding electrical shocks, with their own advantages and disadvantages. Notably, with conductive clothing, you need to be almost completely covered for it to work. A partial suit will be ineffective or even counterproductive, as you described.