How to paint your AR with DuraCoat

AR/M4 AR General Discussion
1

Hey guys,
It’s your favorite newbie from So-Cal, I hope everyone is well??. Since you guys liked my (how to make ballistics gel zombie heads) thread, I thought I would keep doing them if you don’t mind?. This time I’m going to take you through (step by step) on how you can paint your own firearm (I’m such a giver! LOL)… using DuraCoat for the NEWBIE!.. That’s right even if you cant draw a stick figure, you can do this… Hopefully

I hope you enjoy the thread, (I’ll tell you now!) it is rather LOOOOOONG… and does contain LOOOOOOTTTTSSS of pictures, so before we start why don’t you grab a bear, pour a glass of wine or lightem up if you got them.

Please NOTE:
I’m going to be showing you using my KISS AR sporting my latest creation Zombie camo, I thought about doing this with a regular digital camo pattern but that’s to boring and I don’t believe it quite lives up the standards (new and cutting edge) of the M4 site. So with that said lets go where few have gone before and take the plunge into the unknown…

Let’s begin with the basics:
Materials that you will need for this project consist of but are not limited to:

  1. Small air compressor (it only needs to provide 40 PSI) you can by a cheep one here for like $80.00 http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=93657
  2. cheepo airbrush (yes that right a cheepo!) $14.00 dollar one works GREAT http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=95810
  3. 1 roll of 4-6” blue masking tap (home depot or Lowes)
  4. Wax paper (any food store)
  5. Exacto knife and LOTS of spare blades (hardware store)

Optional items that are highly recommended:

  1. Bottle of Vodka with some OJ for coloring
  2. Bottle of wine (just let it breath first)

Step 1: Get an Idea of what you want to do…
Research all pictures, stencils and other rifles and pistols that can help you decide what you would like your firearm to look like when it completed, (goggle is your friend!) your really only limited to your imagination, the time and effort you put into to it…

(Check)

For what it worth!.
I’m actually planning on using these different stencil kits for this project:
Lucky 13 http://www.coastairbrush.com/products.asp?cat=184
Son Of Skull Master Bonz http://www.coastairbrush.com/products.asp?cat=183
Richard markham Mini Skull set http://www.coastairbrush.com/proddet...prod=4842-00
Burial Ground http://www.coastairbrush.com/products.asp?cat=525
The Constitution and the grim reaper and about 50% of the skulls will all be hand done

However If you want a more traditional camo?? Then simply go here for the FREE digital stencils, print out any pattern and all you want for free…
http://tacticalcamo.com/MARPAT/digi.php
http://www.printmini.com/printables/mil/index.shtml

Making you own stencils:
Just incase you thinking to yourself, Ok link… this might be doable, but how can I make my own stencils and will they be any good? Will they last? Well? Will they?..

Excellent question! And I’ve got you covered…
You can make (2) different types of your own stencils really easy and cheep by following these two method…

The first method is by making your own stickers / stencils:

  1. Get some 4” – 6” blue masking tape. (yes it’s needs to be blue!) the blue signifies painters tape, low tack and will peel off easily (trust me!)
  2. Get a roll of wax paper from your local grocery store
  3. Cut the wax paper larger than a regular sheet of paper (8.5x11”)
  4. Now take your blue tape and cover the piece of wax paper on both side with a few as strips as possible…
  5. Now cut out a sheet size piece of paper (8.5x11”)
  6. Now put this sheet into your printer and print out your desired image on it, since it’s the same size as a regular size piece of paper it will feed through your printer without any issues at all…
  7. Now simple just spend the next few hours cutting out your pattern, please note that since you tapped up both sides of the wax paper you now have two stencils of the same pattern with only cutting out one… (pretty cool ha!)…

The second method is a little more involved but these home made stencils are solvent proof and you will be able to reuse them for years to come.

  1. Go to the nearest local hospital and ask for any and all (over exposed x-ray film) They will have tons of it all different sizes and it’s all free!.. You don’t care if it black all over so just take it…
  2. Get some White translucent vellum paper (try office depot)
  3. lay your newly acquired vellum paper over your proposed image and trace it out (in pencil) Try to get as mush detail as possible, spend some time doing this… NOTE: before you move on to the next step, photo copy your vellum sheet.
  4. Now simply tape your vellum to your newly acquired x-ray film and with a brand new blade! Start cutting out your pattern… you will need to change your blade about every 5 minutes, the flim will dull it quick and you really want a sharp blade to cut out all of the turns and detail. Spend a shit load of time on this!.. don’t rush it!, this stencil will be used for years to come!, so get it right the first time.
  5. Several hours and many drinks latter you’ve now completed your first of many stencils…
2

1st light coat:

2nd light coat:

3rd and final light coat:

Step 11:
Now that all of your parts have been painted with your base color and it dried at least 24hrs!! if not 48hrs. Its time to make a choice here, you can do:
A. Assemble your rifle back up and at this point and continue on with your painting or your can do
B. Leave it as is and continue on.

Builder note:
I’m putting it back together at this point as I’ll have patterns that cross over different section of the rifle, + I’m a little concerned about how the paint thickness might affect it going back together.
You should be adding (your overall goal here) is about 1mill of paint on your rifle, your high wear areas should get about 1.5 -2mill,

Step 12:
Parts are dry now it time for the re-installation of the rifle

(Check)

Builders note: You can help along the drying process (as long as the wife doesn’t find out) Just set your oven to warm (approx 110 degrees) and warm each part for 15 minuets, this helps speed up the curing time (drastically)… The directions say 2-3hrs (bull crap!) 24hrs without backing it… I let mine dry for 4hrs and then I backed them each for 15 minutes and then let them cool down for another 9 hrs.

Then cool everything to room temperature for a few hours (in my case it was overnight) 8hrs.

Step 13:
Step back and take a look at your bad boy!, sure the base color is cool by itself but trust me, it only getting better from here…

3

Step 2:
Review the different colors and (and existing patterns if you want) that DuraCoat has to offer. http://www.duracoat-finishes.com (Check)

Step 3:
Place your order for your paint, stencils, striper, thinner and clear. (it takes 5 days) (Check)


Step 4:
Prepare your rifle ie Dismantle everything as far down as you wish to go. NO you do not need to remove everything!, the advantage is the more your remove the better you can clean it!.. That’s it…

(Check)

Step 5:
Degrease everything! I used the DuraCoat degreaser (worked great) just sprayed the parts, let it dry and wipe it down (got tons of gunk off)

(Check)

Step 6:
Lightly sand all areas (except whatever parts are ‘park’) with 600 gr sand paper, your just lightly rougher up the surface here… Don’t go overboard people…

(Check)

Step 7:
Perform a final clean of all parts (do not use a terry towel/rag here) it will leave fuz balls and from this point forward you should wear rubber gloves as you don’t want your body oils on your clean metal or parts. I use two old tee shirts, the first pass is used with the color shirt, once I think everything is clean then I go over it all again with the white T and see how well I did… Once that is complete I then (just for gins and giggles) blow it all down with air.

(Check)

Step 8:
Tape off all areas of everything that you don’t want painted and wipe everything down one more time… You can use cotton balls here, they work great too…

(Check)

Step 9: (don’t skip this step!) (Have a drink! Maybe two)!
Now its time to sit back and review everything one more time as this is your last point of no return!.. Make sure you have your everything ready for painting, make sure you have your drying area and proper ventilation taken care of, make sure that you have removed all possible dust sources from your spraying area to ensure nothing gets in / on your freshly painted parts. Just make sure that you have doubled check your parts and that your ready for the next few hours of fun. Again, don’t stress out, it doesn’t have to be perfect just free of free floating dust, put a fan near the door on the other end away from you, this will help dissipate the paint fumes.

Step 10:
Reach down grab the boys and begin down the road of the less traveled!
Mixing, testing and spraying
Mix your DuraCoat up (12 parts paint to – 1 part hardener) if you want a duller finish then go to 10-1, if you want a shinier finish then use 13/14-1… (Check) NOTE: you can also buy the DuraCoat reducer and reduce your mixture up to 20% too… learn more about the reducer and how it works on the duraCoat site…

4

Step 14:
Know you color scheme:
You should already know (have a good idea) where you are going to apply your second color coat. Personnaly for me this second & third color will allow me to add a two dimensional look into the project as some of the skulls with contain either both and or one of the other colors, then you add it the shading affect (shadows) to provide the viewer with a depth perception too… ie. Add black to the areas on one side of the pictures and add a little white to the opposite side, this will produce a depth affect of the object. More on shading to come in further steps.

(Check)

Step 15: (fun part)
Layout and practice time (have fun!)… Yes… This is where you get to have the enjoyment of laying out your parameters throughout the rifle and figuring out where you want to start and finish. I always get just smashed and have a great time doing this… you can experiment with tons of different looks and variations, just have fun with it!.. Nothing permanent! It can all be painted “black” again so don’t sweat it!..

(Check)

5

Now do a little practicing… Better pour yourself another one here!.. I we still a long way to go… Hahahahaa…

(For what it worth) These are the (5) steps it takes me to complete one Pic… (See I told you I would walk you guys through this stuff)…

6

Step 16:
Mix your paint, Cutout / paint your pattern!. Go slow no rush here…
Remember even a airbrush gives / provides (overspray) so be sure to mask off all areas that your not working on the stencil and go over it several times in small light coats… Start at the end (outer edge) of the design and work your way inwards, I just use regular printing paper and tape it to areas I don’t want any overspray on. Nothing to heavy here folks, you’re going to be going over it all again several times others times down the road, just try to get the overall layout of it of the picture your working on…

Once you’ve completed one side or a particular area of your rifle and you want to fill it in, Please re think that move… NOTE. Once you mix up the duracoat with the hardener you only have 6hrs to use it up, it goes bad fast, so once you mix up your paint, spray as much as you can in that 6hr period and remember you will need to wait 20 minutes between coats and colors too. Plus there’s the wife and kids. Blaa, blaa, blaa… times flies by, just an FYI…

(Check)

7

Right side:

8

Step 17:
Once your main design is completed and has dried for 2 hrs!.. Now you can proceed with filling in the empty spaces, you can use whatever you want, ie (grass blades, trees, swards, helmets, shields) or just shade it all in, it totally up to and your style. Since this is my KISS (keep is simple stupid) rifle I’m not going to go overboard here I’m just going to keep it simple add some shading, a few “affects” and call it night…

(Check)

9

Step 18: (Working it!)
YEP… You heard right, this is where you re-do all of the eyes, mouths and work on your detail into everything!.. This is were I wasn’t happy with my front hand guard and replaced it at the last minute, sure I had to paint it all up but it was worth the extra $$ and effort (I think)

10

This is also where you paint-up of all of your goodies too… I’m doing a (FAKE) Eotech and my Aimpoint 3x’s

11

Several drinks and about 1hr later I have this…

Step 19: (Double checking everything!)
Go back over everything, every detail, every wrinkle, every shadow and make that your happy with it!, that you can live with this for a while! And if your not smiling at this point!!!.. Then you need to stop and PM ME!.. shoot me over some pics and I’ll help you save it!.. No worries… But you should be really happy with yourself at this point team… When you find the small imperfections simply just redue them and move along with life…

Step 20: (Sealing your rifle)
Congratulations!.. let me be the first to say (YOU THE MAN!) and that’s looking too sweet for words… You have just completed your first of many custom paintjobs… Again it doesn’t have to be anything fancy BUT!.. Yes theirs a but!.. before you run off and show all of your buddies at the range, or post it up on the boards you really should (it’s not mandatory!) but you really should seal your rifle at this point!.. YES even the good folks at DuraCoat recommend a sealer and they sell it in flat… There are many, many advantages of using a sealer at the end of your project… here are just a few:

  1. It will protect your finish from scratches (it took you 3 weeks to get to this point) don’t wreck the finish
  2. It will help blend in your painted areas
  3. It provide and nice even matt look to your firearm
  4. etc

Step 21: (You are done!)
Show everyone your new baby!.. Go out and shoot it and have fun, post it up for the team to see…

Before:

After!.

12

Before:

After!.

Did I make the reapers blade to short?? I’m thinking I did…

Now comes the true test… sure you might be saying… Well link that ok or maybe cool but there is NO way in hell that things passes off as camo!.. Dude you’ve been snifen to much paint fumes. LOL…

Well I took it out in it’s native setting (My back yard) and took a few random shoots for the no believers… hahahahahaaa… Distance was about / anywhere from 12-20’ away… Not bad for a when the SHTF urban camo IMO…

13

Well guys (team) that concludes yet another one of my how to do it (linkpimp) style threads Hahahaaa

I hope you enjoyed the thread and try it out on your own…

Best of luck to everyone and thank you again for your time team in checking out this thread…

Linkpimp

P.S.
Please feel free to stay tuned for my next few threads as I’ll be posting up the following relatively shortly:
• How I took a perfectly good stock Glock 22c ripped it down and painted it up, but how?? It starts out like a digital camo pattern, BUT then does it get Linkedafeid?, is linkdafied a word? Stay tuned for all of those answers and more that your never thought you would ever be asking yourself… Hahahahaaaa…

• How to paint your tactical equipment (Vest, caring cases (Hard and soft shells), etc) to match your firearms this thread will include such key features as (how to prep your tactical equipment / material, what paints to use, setting your psi for rubber, fabric an plastic and how to protect your new finish)

Last but certainly not least!..
• The shooting of the ballistic gel Zombie head’s… (This will be a must see video!)

Have a great day everybody…

Linkpimp

14

Simply awesome post dude.

15

Very impressive work, and an amazing tutorial. Thank you very much for taking all the time to put this together: it was certainly no easy feat.

16

That just goes to prove to me its worth paying someone lol. That is a lot of work!!! I just did a build from parts Sunday and was thinking about doing a paint job. Now I am like yea I need to paint it but man I am not doing it myself!

17

That’s badass :cool:

18

That is cool!

Cameron

19

While it’s not my style it is downright cool and VERY well done! Thank you for sharing and thank you for the tutorial…

20

kinda cool.