Hello everyone! Well over the last year and half or so I have been thinking about doing my wife’s M1A stock with a MultiCam-esque paint job. Over my deployment I spent countless hours on the Hide and net in general looking up people’s camo jobs. I saw plenty of Rattle Can jobs but I got turned off on Krylon after my shoty’s Krylon camo job was ruined by some water damage (whole other story). Now don’t get me wrong, Krylon absolutely has its place, just not for me. I looked into other finishes and decided to get into DuraCoat due to durability and not needing to heat cure it. Well I found a thread on calguns with an awesome write up by Chunger. That individual thread is http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=71788 in case anyone wants to check it out. I used this as my reference and color choice due to the thoroughness of the post. Chunger needs to be given due credit for his write up since I never would have done this. This post of mine is just my own process and a few tricks and tips I found out.
So now that you have some background onto my own endeavor. I purchased a few colors (Coyote Brown, Magpul FDE, Woodland Brown and Aug Green) for redoing my shotgun finish and just to check out DuraCoat first. After doing my shotgun and one of M4s I decided to take the plunge onto something harder. I bought the remaining colors that I needed; Desert Mirage Tan, Desert Mirage Mint and Urban Mirage White.
Since I was going to be doing my wife’s stock I figured that I would do my old stock and a set of M4 furniture for grins and giggles. I have my M1A installed in an EBR chassis so I didn’t mind doing mine. Once I started with the tan base coat I went ahead and did two of my wife’s Thermold Mags.
I did not do my wife’s rifle in this because I was a bit scared and thought that since the stock will be in MultiCam I could do the rifle and scope in one color (to be decided but most likely Coyote Brown). Here’s a pic of the 2 M1A stocks along with wife’s rifle prior to doing anything with.
To start out with I started using Synthetic Safe Gun Scrubber to degrease. I tested this on the stock in a very small portion and I was getting a little bit of the black textured finish to rub off so I nixed that idea. Instead I used denatured alcohol as best as I could. Other than the oils from hands these stocks were not dirty and the alcohol did the job well.
Once the parts were degreased I set the parts up in my makeshift paint booth. My paint booth is several clothes hangers suspended from hooks in my garage with 550 cord strung between them. This worked well but has its draw backs. I had to make sure there was enough space from part to part to ensure that moving around wasn’t going to allow the parts to hit. If you do a paint job I would suggest stringing parts up as individually as possible, but adapt and overcome right? (Quick side note, the garage is messy, don’t judge. We’re still unpacking after moving in.)
I should have noted above that powder fee latex gloves were used throughout the entire process and were changed regularly, if I got paint on the gloves from the paint mixing process I swapped out before spraying. One thing that I found to be extremely handy for mixing the paint was using children’s medicine syringes. I only found 10ml syringes so it was a PITA squirting out 2mls and then doing another 10 but it allowed for proper mixture. I also bought a ton of paint mixing bottles from hobby lobby and mixed my paint/hardener that way. Having the squirt tip allowed me to squirt as much painted as desired into the paint cup of my HVLP.
1st step in this process is the Coyote Brown base coat. The M1A stocks were done while hanging up but the little parts were done one side at a time. All the parts received 2 full coats of base. I got as much paint as I could into all the nooks and crannies, obviously I didn’t worry about inside of the M4 butt stock or pistol grip. Handguards and the inside of the stocks were coated, I did remove the heat shields from the M4 handguards.
2nd, once all the parts had their base coat it was time to move onto the tan fades. As you can see here I did large fades with the FDE and the DM Tan. I went subtle around the color transitions so that the fades were gradual.
So now that you have some background onto my own endeavor. I purchased a few colors (Coyote Brown, Magpul FDE, Woodland Brown and Aug Green) for redoing my shotgun finish and just to check out DuraCoat first. After doing my shotgun and one of M4s I decided to take the plunge onto something harder. I bought the remaining colors that I needed; Desert Mirage Tan, Desert Mirage Mint and Urban Mirage White.
Since I was going to be doing my wife’s stock I figured that I would do my old stock and a set of M4 furniture for grins and giggles. I have my M1A installed in an EBR chassis so I didn’t mind doing mine. Once I started with the tan base coat I went ahead and did two of my wife’s Thermold Mags.
I did not do my wife’s rifle in this because I was a bit scared and thought that since the stock will be in MultiCam I could do the rifle and scope in one color (to be decided but most likely Coyote Brown). Here’s a pic of the 2 M1A stocks along with wife’s rifle prior to doing anything with.
To start out with I started using Synthetic Safe Gun Scrubber to degrease. I tested this on the stock in a very small portion and I was getting a little bit of the black textured finish to rub off so I nixed that idea. Instead I used denatured alcohol as best as I could. Other than the oils from hands these stocks were not dirty and the alcohol did the job well.
Once the parts were degreased I set the parts up in my makeshift paint booth. My paint booth is several clothes hangers suspended from hooks in my garage with 550 cord strung between them. This worked well but has its draw backs. I had to make sure there was enough space from part to part to ensure that moving around wasn’t going to allow the parts to hit. If you do a paint job I would suggest stringing parts up as individually as possible, but adapt and overcome right? (Quick side note, the garage is messy, don’t judge. We’re still unpacking after moving in.)
I should have noted above that powder fee latex gloves were used throughout the entire process and were changed regularly, if I got paint on the gloves from the paint mixing process I swapped out before spraying. One thing that I found to be extremely handy for mixing the paint was using children’s medicine syringes. I only found 10ml syringes so it was a PITA squirting out 2mls and then doing another 10 but it allowed for proper mixture. I also bought a ton of paint mixing bottles from hobby lobby and mixed my paint/hardener that way. Having the squirt tip allowed me to squirt as much painted as desired into the paint cup of my HVLP.
1st step in this process is the Coyote Brown base coat. The M1A stocks were done while hanging up but the little parts were done one side at a time. All the parts received 2 full coats of base. I got as much paint as I could into all the nooks and crannies, obviously I didn’t worry about inside of the M4 butt stock or pistol grip. Handguards and the inside of the stocks were coated, I did remove the heat shields from the M4 handguards.
2nd, once all the parts had their base coat it was time to move onto the tan fades. As you can see here I did large fades with the FDE and the DM Tan. I went subtle around the color transitions so that the fades were gradual.
