My digital camo project

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Fumbler

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Tikka T3 Lite 308Win - My digital camo project

I decided to start a camoing project on one of my guns.
I'm one of those guys that are afraid of depreciating a gun by modifying it, so getting the nerve to actually do it took a lil bit of pushing myself.

I decided to do my Tikka T3 Lite (308Win).

Anyway, this was the plan:
1-clean the heck out of everything
2-rough up the glossy scope finish
3-mask and clean again
4-prime
5-put down a dark coat of color (olive)
6-cut out masking tape with the edges blocky (0.2" grid paper was helpful) and stick on wherever I wanted it to be olive colored
7-paint with lighter color (khaki)
8-fill in with other colors in random spots

This is the gun before any paint
http://www.thewolfweb.com/photo_photo.aspx?user=8984&photo=310291&filter=all

This is the barrelled action after priming
http://www.thewolfweb.com/photo_photo.aspx?user=8984&photo=403935&filter=all

After olive
http://www.thewolfweb.com/photo_photo.aspx?user=8984&photo=403931&filter=all

And after masking, painting with khaki, then removing the tape
http://www.thewolfweb.com/photo_photo.aspx?user=8984&photo=403930&filter=all

Sorry about not hotlinking the pics, but the server doesn't allow it.

Some of the paint came off of the stock when I peeled the tape off, so I stripped it and started over with the stock.
Instead of primer, I used Krylon Fusion. This stuff really bonds a whole lot better than primer on plastic, but you have to let it completely cure for 7 days before painting it again, or do it soon within a day, or else the solvent from the top coats will soften the Fusion and it will come off when you pull masking tape off.
I'll post pics when I'm completely finished.
 
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Mass, you might take it easy on the beer the rest of the night. :D

Anyway, yeah I tried them too. They're busted man.
 
That is definately a cool-professional job. You know, you could print up an advertisement and put it in a local paper, or maybe post it at a gunshop, and make some money on the side doing this for other people. You have the pics, and I'd definately hire you.

One question, could a person paint a rifle using brushes? I just finished trying this on a paintball marker, with removeable paint (dollar-store craft stuff), and I like it. I used the brush in a side-to-side motion, and painted diagonal bands of alternating moss and sand colors, and the side-to-side stroke meant the edges were really uneven. Then I broke up the bands with perpendicular smaller swatches of olive. I'm really satisfied, but I don't want to have to spray paint into a cup and then dab a brush in it. Have you seen any paint that could be used on a rifle that isn't aerosol? It's really not something that anyone, paint or gun clerks seem to know.
 
Thanks for the comments.
I dont think I'd do it for others, maybe a couple for good friends, but its kinda time consuming. I wonder how much people would be willing to pay though...

You can paint your rifle any way you like. Really the big concern is getting the paint to stick to the surface and that takes lots of careful cleaning.
 
"i wonder if i could have my mossberg sprayed w/ pickup truck bedliner?"

I sprayed the plastic pistol grip for my AK with Duplicolor truckbed lining. The key isnt to spray a constant stream but to fire quick bursts from about 18" to give a nice texture.


DSC02115_cropped.jpg


Very nice feel and its quite durable. Make sure the surface is clean first.
 
Fumbler.....very nice job, indeed!

Sometime back I tried spray painting the wooden stock of my beat up Norinco SKS with Krylon flat black.

It looked great for a few months and then the paint began peeling. I eventually stripped the stock back to wood. Failed project for me.

chevrofreak, any idea if it's possible to remove the bed liner material once it's on, say, a plastic finish? And if so what do you suggest to use to remove it?

I'd like to try that idea on the UGLY light gray plastic grips of my S/W V40.
 
It's been on the grip for probably 2 or 3 weeks now, and I've molested errrr handled the rifle nearly daily. It doesnt feel like it wants to let go of the surface, and I don't know if it could be removed if you wanted it to be.

I've previously used it on many surfaces, from glass to wood and aluminum and it didnt stick well to any of those, but to plastics it forms an excellent bond! Were I ever tempted to reshape the grip of a Glock, this would be what I used to cover up my hackjob.
 
Looks cool fumbler. I'll be interrested to see the final product.

Out of curiosity, why didn't you paint the bipod? To me, it'd look more "right" if the bipod matched the rifle. . . assuming it could be done without gunking up the moving parts.
 
I dont use the bipod in the field so I didn't paint it. I used it in the pic to hold the rifle up.

I finished it. I got tired of masking stuff off so I left a lot of khaki.

Here it is:
http://www.thewolfweb.com/photos/00404588.jpg
http://www.thewolfweb.com/photos/00404589.jpg
http://www.thewolfweb.com/photos/00404590.jpg

If stripping all the paint off wasnt such a pain in the butt I'd do it all over again and do it right from the start. That means using a base coat of Krylon Fusion, letting that fully harden, then making sure I put enough patches on before putting on more coats because it is SOOOOOOOOOO much easier to mask off patches and paint the whole gun than to mask off the outside of a shape, mask off the rest of the gun, then paint that one spot. Thats really why I did a half-ass job.

I think my next camo job will be a NEF Pardner single shot 12ga. I'll do a digital camo again so I can see how I've learned and compare it to the Tikka. After that I'll do my Mossberg 500 but I'll invest in airbrush equipment and do it in Duracoat for better durability.

For anyone who's used Duracoat and other spray paints, can you comment on differences in durability and ease of use?
 
"The links are good, but the server is not. Sometimes they wont open and they dont work half the time if I hotlink the pics."

the links worked if I copied and pasted them into a new browser window.

see if you webhost has hotlinking prevention turned on. some folks want hotlinking permitted from their webspace, some folks do not.

or, you could set up a free image hosting account at http://photobucket.com/.
 
I finished it. I got tired of masking stuff off so I left a lot of khaki.
Click to expand...

All the same, if you'd be willing to do some "in the field" shots of the rifle at varying distances in different kinds of terrain, I'd love to see them.
 
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