This is topic painting your gun in forum Firearms forum at The New Huntmastersbbs!.
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Posted by Barndog (Member # 255) on January 04, 2005, 04:19 PM:
Anyone ever camo your own gun with duracoat or like product. If you have, what kind of airbrush did you use? Did you buy a template?, What pattern? Did it work and is it holding up? Would you do another gun? Did you run into any problems? Any recomendations on application? etc.
From what I've read $35 for a duracoat camo kit, $50 for an airbrush, and $10 for reducer and hardner-Enough for one rifle. Looks like a fun hobby.
Posted by GUTPILE (Member # 448) on January 04, 2005, 04:47 PM:
Barndog,
The world is safer because we own guns. I go into Canada everyday for work and tell the guys about,say, my AR-15. They give me a strange look. I ask them if they've ever heard of that gun ? No, don't have a clue.
Posted by JoeF (Member # 228) on January 04, 2005, 06:49 PM:
FWIW, I painted a rifle with some very temporary paint - my comment deals mostly with the template idea.
I pulled up wads of fescue that ranged in the 7-10 inch range and held them over a rifle that had a light green colored base coat. I sprayed over that "template" with a flat black and have heard nothing but great complements about the paint job.
Fun stuff, the best thing about it was that it killed the shine.
Posted by Barndog (Member # 255) on January 05, 2005, 08:11 AM:
Gutpile-
The Adolf comment is meant that those liberials who live here in the US are just as evil as Adolf Hitler. I agree, with owning guns, no use living if we can't shot back. The question is: Have you ever painted a gun?
JoeF-
I painted a wood box the same way, used oak leaves and grasses, with a mix of sage brush. I used black as the base coat and 4 different shades of gray and brown. I'd like to try my artistic talents(haha)at airbrushing a rifle with some quality paint. A guy puts alot of money into the rifle and scope, I sure would like to make the paint job equally appealing. Kind of like a custom Harley gas tank painted with dragons and fire. Did you paint the barrel? or just the stock. I'd like to try the stock, barrel, scope, everything.
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on January 05, 2005, 08:28 AM:
I think Lance Homman has done some stock painting, but Joe has, also, I remember seeing the pics.
I have, also, on my AR. No big deal. I used (supposedly) removable camo paint on the whole enchilada, been in place for years, gun solvents don't seem to bother it?
I did have a bit of a problem when I painted a scope. Later on, removing it caused the non slip stirations along the edges of the scope caps to come off, as well. Now the caps have aluminum color showing around the edges, grooves. Appeared to take the anodizing off, along with the paint, but just in that specific area?
Go ahead and paint it!
Good hunting. LB
Posted by Cdog911 (Member # 7) on January 05, 2005, 02:51 PM:
Barndog,
I just followed Silverfox's directions from over at PM and it worked great. I started by removing the barrel from the stock and cleaning both with white gas to remove any and all surface grease/ oils. Once that was done, I masked off the receiver portion of the rifle to keep paint and the like out of the guts.
Start by giving the whole thing a good coat of grey primer. Let that sit for a day and give it another coat. I then gave the primer a slight buffing with 600 grit sandpaper to promote adhesion of the camo paints. For camo, I used the ultra matte Krylons which I have found at hardware and auto supply stores. I think Wally World even carries them. I used khaki tan, olive green, brown and some black.
Give the entire piece an overcoat of khaki tan. Next, I went ahead and gave a few areas a light coating of olive green to diversify the base a bit. Let things dry.
Now, I used a stencil of ivy from a crafts store for my pattern. I started by laying down black and dark brown leaves, then offset the stencil over these and hit them with greenh. The brown and black gave the illusion of shadows. I covered it randomly all over like this. At this point, it lacked something overall, so I went back over and gave the entire gun a light smattering of leaves using khaki tan paint, which gave the overall pattern something of a sense of depth.
You can do just about anything you wanna do with this method, and Silverdog gives lotsa pics and stuff over at PM, but I would encourage you to use nothing but the Ultra Matte paints because they work quite well and result in zero reflection at all. You can lay your rifle in the grass and lose it if you want.
[ January 05, 2005, 05:14 PM: Message edited by: Cdog911 ]
Posted by Doug (Member # 31) on January 05, 2005, 03:38 PM:
Make sure you degrease your gun and use the krylon ultra flat spray paint. I painted my savage several years ago and its holding up very well. It's still ugly but now its harder to see. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Posted by grumpy (Member # 451) on January 08, 2005, 05:15 PM:
I don't like the idea of painting over a fine piece of wood just to hide it from an intended target. I have been using vet wrap for several years now and it has worked perfectly. You can get it in several different shades of green, brown, black and grey. I cut the 4 inch rolls into 1 and 2 inch rolls and wrap it around the gun, crossing the diferent colors to ger a mottled effect. When I hunt in snow I can just add some white to it. At the end of the season I cut it off and have that wood stock back.
Posted by GUTPILE (Member # 448) on January 08, 2005, 08:07 PM:
Barndog,
No, but I've thought about it. Bell and Carlson does it if you want a pro job. I just liked your gun comment because nowadays the gun is always at fault. Mine has never went accidentally by itself.
Posted by JoeF (Member # 228) on January 11, 2005, 07:04 PM:
Barndog - I painted the whole "shooting match". If I made a mistake it was in over-masking things like the power and objective rings, the magazine cutout, bolt, etc... I could have greatly minimized the exposure of the original finish and would have had a much more appealing end product.
I really did the job for entertainment and didn't spend much time applying any great finesse, or however you spell it. It is a cheap rifle and I thought I'd try painting before using good(read "hard to remove") paint.
Enteresting note, after something like three years of using the rifle with the temporary coats you get an idea of how much a rifle really gets used and how durable the original finish of a rifle is. Most of my black over-spray is now gone and the scratches down to the original finish are plentiful, and I did not hunt hardly any at all last year or this year - to date. The rifle is still a bit of a challenge to find if you lay it down in grass and then walk out 30-100 yards to dump down a call.
I really did enjoy the project and the results; when seen in-person, were decent. A photo where you know you're supposed to be looking at a rifle doesn't do it justice. Like I mentioned above, set it down, refocus your attention, and then try to refind it... then you begin to believe that you did OK.
Most important of all, it kills the shine and reflections of a gloss finished rifle.
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on January 11, 2005, 07:32 PM:
Welcome to the New Huntmasters, grumpy. Glad to have you and the rest of the seven dwarfs, on board. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Guys, lots of fine suggestions.
The paint option is semi-permanent, so make sure you like it, but don't let it scare you. After all is said and done, it's only painting. And, who hasn't done that?
Take a deep breath and remember, there's no turning back. You mess it up, just trash it and buy another.
Good hunting. LB
Posted by Barndog (Member # 255) on January 14, 2005, 09:42 AM:
Hey leonard, ever camo a spotlight? (joking, joking, just read the flipper section).
I've read all the other forums on spray painting camo from Kraylon and such, I was interested in the duracoat process per say.
http://www.lauerweaponry.com/
I do have a cheap rifle ready to be primed as soon as the temp. comes up a little. I'd also like to dry and paint some art into the stock, maybe a picture or a name. Local True value guy said I should paint it with chalk board paint, that way I could keep a running tally. Thanks for those who share. There are a lot of good comments out there.
Posted by Cdog911 (Member # 7) on January 17, 2005, 11:18 AM:
Here's what I did with my Ruger MarkII M77. I didn't paint the scope or the breech area of the steel.
My Howa has a laminated stock which gives it a nice "pattern" anyway, so I didn't gussy her up. This Ruger has a synthetic stock.
Posted by JoeF (Member # 228) on January 17, 2005, 06:21 PM:
Cdog, I like Ruger rifles a bit(mayhaps better than most) but I must admit that your paint job is about the best "justice" that one of those synthetics has ever seen!
You have to admit that it was "gawd awefull ugly" to start with. Looks very good now!
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