My first self-done paint job. I still wish I could have used OnTarget Customs - I love ARP's work, he has done a great job for me in the past - but that simply ended up not being an option, mostly for marital reasons.
Intended for use in the high plains of Colorado. Stiller 308 action, XLR evolution chassis, Vortex Viper 4-16x50 FFP.
Full Album: http://www.snipershide.com/shooting/members/oddball-six-albums-stiller-xlr-308-high-plains.html
Base is almond colored high temp enamel, followed by a rust brown flat high-performance enamel, which was then highlighted with OD green and tan spray using the camo-in-a-can stuff from sportsman's warehouse.
For my first attempt, I would say that it turned out ok.
Lessons learned:
- Tumbleweeds are REALLY hard to use for camo silhouettes, they tend to "spring up" away from the rifle and thus you end up with very few hard profiles in the paint.
- Thin coats are much better than heavy coats.
- Be very careful about using a drop cloth, etc, as anywhere the rifle touches anything while still wet screws up really quickly with no pressure required at all.
- Modelling clay from hobby lobby did a great job plugging the action. Plastic dental pics that I use for my handgun cleaning did an outstanding job in getting the crap off.
- Using a high visibility clay color like a bright red, green, pink, etc, is a great step to help you see where you still have bits to scrape off.
- Be really careful about how the tape "crinkles" on things like scope turrets. You can see on the elevation knob where some crinkling left just a TINY little bit of space and that was all that it took for some of the paint to work down onto the knob. Its not a big deal and doesn't obscure function too bad, but I definitely could have done a better tape job there.
- The softening layer is a careful balance. I may have gone too far down the "softening" side at the expense of losing contrast from the underlying greens and browns.
Intended for use in the high plains of Colorado. Stiller 308 action, XLR evolution chassis, Vortex Viper 4-16x50 FFP.
Full Album: http://www.snipershide.com/shooting/members/oddball-six-albums-stiller-xlr-308-high-plains.html
Base is almond colored high temp enamel, followed by a rust brown flat high-performance enamel, which was then highlighted with OD green and tan spray using the camo-in-a-can stuff from sportsman's warehouse.
For my first attempt, I would say that it turned out ok.
Lessons learned:
- Tumbleweeds are REALLY hard to use for camo silhouettes, they tend to "spring up" away from the rifle and thus you end up with very few hard profiles in the paint.
- Thin coats are much better than heavy coats.
- Be very careful about using a drop cloth, etc, as anywhere the rifle touches anything while still wet screws up really quickly with no pressure required at all.
- Modelling clay from hobby lobby did a great job plugging the action. Plastic dental pics that I use for my handgun cleaning did an outstanding job in getting the crap off.
- Using a high visibility clay color like a bright red, green, pink, etc, is a great step to help you see where you still have bits to scrape off.
- Be really careful about how the tape "crinkles" on things like scope turrets. You can see on the elevation knob where some crinkling left just a TINY little bit of space and that was all that it took for some of the paint to work down onto the knob. Its not a big deal and doesn't obscure function too bad, but I definitely could have done a better tape job there.
- The softening layer is a careful balance. I may have gone too far down the "softening" side at the expense of losing contrast from the underlying greens and browns.
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