How to paint with Duracoat

[Rossco66]

Duracoating an M14 EBR
I decided to take on a more professional approach to painting this rifle over the spray paint that I’ve used in the past. Duracoat provides a durable and ultra-flat finish and by utilizing an airbrush I felt confident that I could deliver a much more polished finished product.

This was the original look of my EBR



Step 1:
Supplies needed were a roll of drop sheet plastic sheeting, an automotive paint quality air respirator, ear plugs, lacquer thinner, roll of paper towels, disposable latex gloves, masking tape, a hobby swivel knife, 2 file folders, several unpainted coat hangers, an airbrush and compressor, Duracoat paint and quite a bit of time with a large dash of patience.

Step 2:
Create a separate painting area that will minimize airflow and the chances of foreign particulate getting on the painting surface while you are working. I used the plastic drop cloth to make a 5 X 6 foot painting booth in the garage. Create some means of hanging the pieces to be painted (I attached some leftover copper pipe to the ceiling) and fashion hooks with the coat hangers. I needed about 2 dozen for this project. Disassemble the weapon and clean each piece with CRC SensorKleen to degrease it with no fear of any residue left behind.

Step 3:
I masked off the lenses in my scope along with the nomenclature. I took all of the screws and bolts and pushed them through a section of a file folder to hold them in place for ease of painting and to not lose any of course. I used a Badger airbrush with an air compressor running at 30 psi and painted every piece with a base coat of Tactical Coyote Brown. The idea here was to get into every nook and cranny so that there would never be fear of corrosion and the look of my breach, magwell and barrel, when viewed through the handrail, would be uniform. I then reassembled the rifle so that I could better apply a cohesive pattern where parts came together.



Step 4:
I used the file folders to draw out a number of patterns I took from looking at a Multicam patterned BDU jacket. This material was stiff enough to hold in place while I airbrushed and didn’t absorb much in the way of paint. The swivel knife was very effective at cutting out the intricate shapes of the female templates. I used a Tactical Desert Brown and Tactical Foliage Green in angled tandem stripes and used the templates to randomly run the stripes sideways onto the adjacent colour. Unfortunately the pictures I took of this stage were lost.

The brown I selected was a bit too red and came out more like cinnamon rather than the brown I had envisioned and the foliage green went greyer than I would have like but the effect of the pattern still works. If I were to do it again I would likely use Tactical Woodland Brown and perhaps Desert Mint for these stripes. I ended up tinting the green to look more like Desert Mint when I applied the same colour in a subsequent process.
 
Step 5:
I took some of the larger templates and began to add WWII OD Green (with flattening agent added), the Tactical Desert Brown with a bit of Tactical White added, and the newly tinted Foliage Green.



You can see in the shot above the general striping in the background along with some of the template additional layers of the other colours.



Multicam is a very interesting pattern because it really doesn’t come alive until you added the two extremes of dark and light to it. I randomly added British DPM Dark Brown (with flattening agent added) and Tactical White with some of the dark brown added to tone it down a bit to finish off the pattern.




I did the matching bump helmet for good measure. Magazines were all done to look similar as well.

[Rossco66]

Duracoat is difficult to find and Rich at Beetle Outdoor Supply was awesome as a resource to not only get the paint but give me some pointers in the application process.

He has a small operation in Barrie, Ontario. If you're looking to work with this real steel paint and want an extremely high level of customer service, give Rich a call.

http://www.beetleoutdoorsupply.com/