A new hobby while at the Castle....time is passed, see new thread
 

During the pandemic, KT watched a large number of YouTube videos and found many interesting ones on spray painting camo on rifles, shotguns, air rifles, and even pistols. Part art and part practical...the basic premise being that a black gun is readily seen because black is not often seen in nature. Turkey, squirrel and coyote being especially observant...crows too!

So, for about $30 in initial investment, the spray camo paints may be had at your local Walmart. KT has now painted several long guns, two metal water bottles, a red Coleman Ice chest, 3 ammo cans, and an insulated coffee mug. If there is any interest I will post images of these items in this thread. And tell a bit about the methods used.

Now, do not think His Majesty is painting any very valuable gun or rifle, for I am not, but KT was getting bored with the looks of these particular long guns....and why an ice chest? To make it a bit harder for His Majesty's beer drinking serfs to find KT's Royal Brews! :laughing::laughing::laughing:

The Queen has stated, don't set these items down in the Royal Woods, for you surely won't find them! :lol::lol:

Anyway it is a fun hobby and helps while away the Royal hours! :yes::yes:

Oh man I so wanna see some pics, and details!

Sounds fun for sure.

I remember in college, field trip, one forestry teacher had pre set a cooler full of beers out in the woods. We walked out there and see this random cooler in the woods. Wander over and it’s full of ice and local brews. Dude had planted it ahead of the field trip and we had a cold one while out in the forest.... I liked that teacher. Glad he didn’t paint his cooler in camo :lol:

I found a deer shed on that outing too - as usually I was at the back of the class, everyone had walked over this antler and I brought it home. Still have it.

Pictures please!
Are you doing the "float it on water" technique?

Yes would like to see some examples for sure KT.

Hoping camo-painting my wallet would make it difficult for my wife to find it.

KT has seen that method on a couple of YouTube videos, but it uses a lot of paint and one never knows exactly what the results will look like. KT is using a direct application of various camo paints with patterning methods, mostly made with vegetation from the Royal Court Yard and adjacent woods!

Pictures in my following post!:D:D

HA HA! The Queen has suggested KT never take these items to the woods for surely He will lose them! :laughing::laughing: But in the house, not so useful!

OK, here are some pictures of various shotguns and an air rifle, ammo cans, an insulated coffee mug, and the small Royal Ice Chest.

The two shotguns are a .410 Mossberg pump (originally totally black), and a Pardner H&R 12 gauge single shot. Next two pics are of a Gamo Bone Hunter .117 air rifle, full rifle and close up showing optics. Then come various pictures of ammo cans, coffee mug, and ice chest.

Concerning methodology, no matter what item you start with, KT uses brake fluid or acetone to thoroughly clean any oil, grease from the surface....if present the paint will not adhere properly. In the case of the .410, there was some rusty small pitting on the barrel and receiver so it was first 0000 steel wooled, cleaned, and then primed with a gray rustkiller primer. The base coat is camo sand or camo khaki..applied as two light coats to prevent running...long guns are hung for the base coat. Once dry...in about 20 minutes....for leafy patterns, KT likes to spray a few stripes at angles across the gun...first of army green, then of dark earth brown and finally of dark green. Use paints labeled as camo...from Walmart. Then using various plants as patterns, lay them on the gun and spray a complimentary color over it. Practice with the plant on a piece of cardboard to see the effect before hand. When finished let dry, and hit it with 2 light coats of matte clear. This hardens the surface, making the finished product more scratch resistant.

With the 12 gauge, KT followed the same basic procedure, but took pine needles (green ones) and made a thin brush of them about 3 inches wide to spray through...made several of them, for different colors. Spray grass pattern through the needle brushes until you get the desired effect. At the end, spray just a little matte black sparingly in spots for a more dimensional shadow effect. Again coated with matte clear.

For the Gamo air rifle, it was green and black to start with, so KT just sprayed the whole thing flat black, then took some small art sponges, dipped them in spots of paint I sprayed on cardboard, and randomly spotted them around on the stock. Filled in with other paints until the effect was what KT wanted...a leaf litter pattern. Several different paints...when KT looks out one of the Castle windows, the first thing about the woods He sees is light and dark, sunlight patches and dark areas, either leaves or shadow areas. That is the effect KT was looking for!

Two of the ammo cans simply show a grassy pattern...the effect of using the pine needle brushes, one has a couple of spots that started out as a pseudo-snake skin pattern, but ended up looking like 2 fire ant mounds! :laughing::laughing: The other ammo can shows where I used a small foam brush to dab on twig looking structures, and then sponges to fill in leaves, etc. At the bottom of that pattern, KT used dark woods brown and a trace of black to put in some grass looking structure.

The ice chest used the same method as the .410 and the coffee mug used pine needle brushes. Note the black effect is at the bottom of the mug pattern only.

Anyway, that's the basic procedure and effects on display. KT has two friends who have seen this work and want His Majesty to paint their guns...one being a 10 gauge turkey gun and the other being a very old, very loose unfireable 12 gauge. No charge at this time for His Majesty is still learning and needs items to practice with! HA HA

Neat camo technique KT !!!! :thumbsup:

......did you take your camo fad to the next level ? :laughing:
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Not quite that far, GKL! But it would be nice to have that camo lounge chair! Believe it or not, His Majesty has seen one of those in a deer cabin! Unfortunately a brown bear had gotten into the cabin, could not figure out how to get out, so he destroyed nearly everything in the building before tearing the door off the hinges! That chair was shredded! Ha ha.

That gilly suit looks itchy! Ha ha.

Incidentally that is the bestest camo job KT ever saw on that last picture, Gary!:laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing:

That is some great painting done on the items, your majesty! Looks very professional. So how do you do the leaves and branches, do you paint local plants and use those to apply the paint, or do you make a stencil out of those or ??

If the base color is light, then KT uses a darker color and lays the vegetation directly on the object(rifle, shotgun, etc) and lightly sprays over the leaves, ferns or pine needles. If the base color is dark, then KT uses a lighter color paint to spray. The main trick is to get a solid base color, and then spray some random oriented stripes of other colors. This gives the breakup needed before the veggies are applied. Branches are a different method all together. Take a dark color, black or dark gray, and use a 1" foam brush to dab on the twig pattern. Then infill with sponged paints but dabbing them in your paint, then onto the object, again randomly. I like to use a little black at the end. Once dry, back up and look over your object. It might appear a bit too bright, so I take the black spray can, shake well, and from about 14-18" distance, lightly spray across the object. This tones down the brightness a bit.

So in short His Majesty uses the leaves, twigs, and pine needles as the stencil...since what you want is the general shape, not the detail.

If you spray the plants then the paint will dry so quick, you cannot get the paint to transfer to your item. After you cut your plants to use, you can press them flat for a day before using. All my work has an overspray of clear matte finish, which will harden off and help prevent scratching and chipping.

The nice thing about all of this is you can use some cardboard to try out your different effects and patterns before actually spraying the item. And remember, if you don't like something, then hit that spot with your base color and simply redo! There is no wrong or right. KT has looked at commercial stencils but they cost $10-$30 per sheet or set.

Great work, but I would worry about loosing my guns now...

:laughing::laughing: Exactly what the Queen said!

The Pardner 12 gauge, along with an unpainted Marlin Model 66 Centennial .22lr, are both mounted above the King's Royal Bed, armed and ready should any interlopers get past the Royal Guard!

[QUOTE=GKL;3258754]Neat camo technique KT !!!! :thumbsup:

......did you take your camo fad to the next level ? :laughing:
QUOTE]

GKL, His Majesty liked the picture of the camo truck so much He copied it and sent it as an example of KT's latest work to several of His Royal Friends! Now waiting to see what they say! HA HA

Meanwhile, Here is another picture of a couple of originally silver water bottles that KT painted to resemble scaly snakeskin. More Fun! :laughing::laughing:

KT has spent two days visiting local pawn shops in the hopes of finding another reasonably priced long gun to continue this hobby. Unfortunately His Majesty thinks it is too close to the start of hunting season as the shotguns and rifles He has located are either priced too high, or need to be repaired to be operational. Thought KT had located a Remington 1100 20 gauge semi-auto, but the safety is gimped and would need work...dealer asked for offer, so KT offered $160, he came down to $180, but not enough discount to fool with it.

So tomorrow KT is off to a large pawn shop in another local community...maybe He will find something....never know! Unfortunately, almost no yard sales going on locally. KT did find a small but attractive fall wreath for the Castle front door...even the Queen liked it...especially for $3!! :laughing::laughing:

Good luck KT! The market has gone crazy, and it's not because of the regular upcoming hunting season.

Thanks, Longhair! Most dealers I have talked with recently, say the main demand is for handguns and hand gun ammo. I did visit another pawn shop this morning and after much looking found a single shot H&R 20 gauge breakover type backpack gun. Already have a nice upland bird 20 gauge semi-auto, inherited from the Queen's uncle, but it will be good to have a 20 gauge knock about also. His Majesty actually got the fellow down $10 on it, so KT bought it and two 50 round boxes of .380 acp that they had in stock! Hard to practice with the Royal Pistol with only a little ammo on hand! :laughing::laughing:

Typical of the ATF, they put a hold on my purchase til His Majesty clears their system. If it goes like the last two purchases, KT will hear from the seller tomorrow. But if not, He can pick up the gun on the 15th. Nothing wrong with the stock finish on this gun, but KT will not ruin its value by camo painting it!

KT saw a number of Marlin model 60 .22lr rifles, but His Majesty already has a nice one, and the others looked too nice to paint. Also saw an Ariska 6.5 for $70, with a really crappy finished black stock, with a scope on it, but KT is not interested in cheap guns that take expensive, hard to find, ammo. Went through that once before!

Locally anyway, it does appear that hunting season is driving the lack of long guns at reasonable prices, even used ones!

Beautiful and professional camo work! i could hardly find the objects in the pics!

:laughing::laughing: Thanks for the compliment, JAK! Did you have a favorite pattern of those pictured? His Majesty is trying to decide what pattern(s) to use on this next shotgun.....Maybe KT needs to let youall decide what you would like to see...realizing He does not do RealTree, but could do something close to it that has both grass, twigs, and leaf patterns in it. Could do something with some random snakeskin diamond patterns also.

So....what's everyone's pleasure??