co-exprs Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 So it's winter and my down time from shooting. If there is one thing I love more than shooting, it's snowboarding and we've had a killer season of snow sports up at Keystone and A-Basin. I actually need a few months of down time, just to recharge my batteries, reload, stock up on supplies, um... actually clean my guns. I also just plain get burned out on practice by the end of the shooting season and need a break. Unfortunately the snowboarding thing is only on the weekends which leaves me sitting in front of the TV watching Jeopardy with the wife (she considers watching a trivia, game show while getting a neck rub to be "quality time"), while I'm thinking of 100 things I would rather be doing. Middle age is a sad time in an aging man's life, when he must come to grips with the fact that he can no longer lure his wife away from a game show for some carnal fun (although she was put off last weekend when she got frisky and wanted me to pause the Bronco game... while they were winning the AFC championship). Anyway.... I coach some beginners on pistol marksmanship. I can help competitors get to about the B level before their journey as shooters become their own and very personal. That's when the student must depart from the teacher and find their own path to greatness. I have a guy I coached during the 2013 season, name Aaron. It was fun to watch him go from a basket case, finishing near the bottom of every match, with a cobbled together open class glock, running 9mm major and wondering why parts kept falling off the gun in the middle of stages. He would get so worked up. Fast forward 4 months and he's gone from D to B, now runs a Brazos STI in 38sc and finishes right up there with the vetrans at all of the pistol matches. It's nothing for me to point out things to work on and give advice, but he was very great full for the help and in Dec, invited me to go duck hunting. I've never been duck hunting and I was already sick of Dr. Oz so I said "what the hay, I'll give it a try". I had to get up at 2am, drive 2.5hrs, wade around in an icy river setting decoys in the dark and generally froze my posterior off on a -5deg morning. I shot 3 ducks though and had a great time. As I walked back to the truck I noted that I could not feel my feet and wondered if that was healthy, but... I'm already looking forward to the next time I get to go. I really enjoyed that it was a lot like fly fishing. A lot of technical prep work, gotta get there early and you gotta know where to go (or have a lock on a buddy who does). You need decoys and you need to know how to call the ducks. You need to know how to shoot, cuz a passing duck might be doing 25mph as it flies over the spread. There are waders and boats and dogs and guns and coffee in a thermos and all sorts of man stuff to shop for at Cabellas. I'm a working stiff and don't have a lot of extra money to support my hobbies. I need my guns to have multiple and practical applications to justify their existence. While my Versamax would be an outstanding water fowl gun, the Carbon Arms tube sort of turned it into a dedicated competition shotgun. I know I could plug it, but who wants to have the game warden barge into their blind to check their gear all the time. Not worth it to save a little recoil. I'm stout enough to run 3" loads through a pump so I decided to take that instead of converting my autoloader back into a field gun. Most of you know that I have a bromance with my Super Nova. I just love that thing. It's not as smooth or as fast as my Versamax, but I have so much fun shooting that Nova and it is hands down the most versatile gun I own. I shoot that thing all the dang time! I decided to do a camo job on the Super Nova for waterfowl hunting next season and started looking for a place to send it off to. I came across a company advertising Hydrographics camo dipping and sold a do it yourself kit. I watched a ton of youtube vids and it seemed simple enough. I have an artistic streak in me and thought it might be a fun winter project. I picked a pattern and put the kit on my Christmas list. My wife was gracious and got me the kit, in lieu of more shirts and I got started. For those who are not familiar, Hydrographics is the process by which a pattern is printed onto a oil based film. The film is floated on top of water and you dip whatever you want to paint, through the ink. The oil in the ink forms a barrier between the water and the object and the water provides the pressure to hold the ink against the surface of the object while it bonds. The result is that you can paint objects with a preprinted pattern (such as camo, carbon fiber, smiley faces) and the pattern will bend and flow around the complex shapes. This is the process by which the camo was applied to all of the shotguns on the shelf at your local store. I started off with the metal parts of the gun, both steel and aluminum. The dip company suggested using self etching primer for both the steel and the aluminum parts for a really good bond. I scuffed up the surfaces with a scotch pad, cleaned and then primed. After priming you have to spray on a base layer which provides the surface for the print to stick too as well as the background color for the print. Just tape off anything you don't want painted and hit it. After the base is applied it's time to dip. Dipping is the messy part for sure and it takes a little practice to get it right. Fortunately if you screw it up, you can wait till it dries, reprep the part and dip it again. A few of the early attempts took several tries to get it right. Here's a photo of the barrel, extension and end cap. I know I can't use the extension when hunting, but I was having fun with the project and decided to do the whole thing. Looks pretty nice! I didn't have any special equipment. I just used a large rubbermaid storage container for the small parts and the bath tub for the larger pieces. It got the job done and kept water off the kitchen floor. After the metal parts were done, I switched to the plastic parts. Plastic is tough to paint. All plastics are different and molded parts have release agents added to help them pop out of the molds. The same release agent which keeps the parts from sticking keeps paint from sticking too. Different polymer types require different prep to get a good paint bond. I scuffed up the surface of the plastic as directed and then used an product called "adhesion promoter" from the auto parts store. Adhesion promoter is used to get paint to stick to polymers and highly flexible bumper plastic on cars and it really helps the paint hold up to the abuse of being on the front of the car. After the promoter was dry I applied the colored base coat and was ready to dip. I wanted to dip the receiver and stock in one piece, but the large flat surfaces are a long way to stretch the ink without messing up the pattern so I taped the receiver/stock into halves and dipped first the left side and then the right. It turned out pretty good, but there were a number of little white spots where bubbles got trapped while dipping. My daughter and I sat at the table with plastic model paint and tiny paint brushes and touched up the little ugly spots. You can't see them, unless you look very close, which a duck won't be doing. I noticed that the ink didn't quite get down into the stippling as well as I would have liked. There is surface tension in the oil and it can span very small gaps. It seems to go into checkering pretty well, but stippling is a tough one. I can live with it. Here is the final result and I think that overall it turned out really cool. There are tons and tons of patterns out there to use. I chose this one because it closely matches the wetlands camo on my jacket. This was a fun project and I already have another one picked out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TISCHLJ Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Way cool.. Nice write up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RammerJammer Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 I'm very impressed. Looks awesome but its not safe to stand in kitchen chairs... or so I tell my kids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigkyle72 Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Looks really good! I was thinking about doing some hyrdographics to my 3 gun shotgun because EVERYONES looks the same. Its pretty crazy but I swear that 1st paragraph sounds EXACTLY like me! Almost to the T, its pretty scary! Only thing is we have had NO SNOW in california! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
co-exprs Posted January 22, 2014 Author Share Posted January 22, 2014 Well I've got a patent on me... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TISCHLJ Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 I believe Lone Star Innovations, a forum dealer here does this sort of thing. . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thermobollocks Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Just don't lose it in Raton... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stage12m Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 hmm i always thought about trying it myself but thought i would just completely butcher it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RammerJammer Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 hmm i always thought about trying it myself but thought i would just completely butcher it Thats me... I have known myself long enough to know I am not at all capable of this. I would have a camoflouged tub and angry wife and a wet gun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
co-exprs Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 (edited) LOL. Well there is a learning curve to it. The kit came with more than enough to dip the entire shotgun... Or so they thought. I had to dip every part at least twice to get it right. The good news is, if you mess up, you can base coat right over it and try again and replacement film is cheap. Also, it isn't terribly expensive to have done. If you really want to add some fun to your gear and just don't want to tackle this on your own, there are lots of places that will do it for you. Edited January 23, 2014 by co-exprs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimmyZip Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Sweet looking shotgun now. Hmmm........ I see this in my future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtp Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 What did you use to block off the internals during dipping? Any pics while you were dipping it? Looks great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
co-exprs Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 Just blue painters tape. Shotguns are designed to be all weather and get wet without damage. You only need to keep the ink out of the internals. For the reciever I simply taped off all of the openings, mostly to keep the primer and paint out. Same with the stock. I took the stock apart, pulled out the rubber parts and put tape on the inside to block the holes. I didn't take in-process photos. It requires some mental focus. My next project will be fun. I just ordered film in Old Glory. Gonna lay some stars and stripes on the Versamax! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpeltier Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 (edited) That looks really nice. Good job. Where did you order the kit from and what paint did you use for a base coat? I have a Ruger American that would be cool to do something like this to. Scope and all. Any problems doing a scope? Edited January 23, 2014 by mpeltier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
co-exprs Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 I got my kit from Dip Wizard, but there are several companies. The base coat, clear coat and film activator came with the kit. Tubular objects are actually pretty easy to dip. It's the complex shapes which are challenging. The trigger guard was particularly challenging as the ink just didn't want to flow around all of the contours, but I eventually got it. For your first project, I would recommend buying an extra piece of the film for $15 and do a few practice dips. Do the role technique on a piece of PVC pipe, before dipping your scope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpeltier Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 Thanks. I'm gonna give it a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrumpyOne Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 Jeez! Don't drop it in the brush...you'll never find it. That is freaking amazing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
co-exprs Posted January 24, 2014 Author Share Posted January 24, 2014 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bishop414 Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 Impressive, looks very nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtp Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 I got my kit from Dip Wizard, but there are several companies. The base coat, clear coat and film activator came with the kit. Tubular objects are actually pretty easy to dip. It's the complex shapes which are challenging. The trigger guard was particularly challenging as the ink just didn't want to flow around all of the contours, but I eventually got it. For your first project, I would recommend buying an extra piece of the film for $15 and do a few practice dips. Do the role technique on a piece of PVC pipe, before dipping your scope. Sheesh, 'thanks' - that took my lunch hour researching. Did you roll the stock as well? $100 for a kit, and will likely still need to buy the film I want separately, or break out the spray gun, but very cool...another project added to the list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
co-exprs Posted January 25, 2014 Author Share Posted January 25, 2014 I did not role the stock. I dipped the stock and receiver together and taped them into halves. I may try to role tbe next one though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durtywrench Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 This is awesome ! I have a little cricket rifle for my daughter that I wanna make nice for her. The pink hello kitty it is ! To bad it's so expensive but I guess not to bad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinj308 Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 Nice job!!!!! and thank you for the awesome write up Definitley adding that to my project list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jesse Tischauser Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 Nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
co-exprs Posted January 29, 2014 Author Share Posted January 29, 2014 (edited) My stars and strips film gets here tomorrow and I'll get started on my next project. It's supposed to be snowy all weekend, so I won't have much else to do. Should be fun! Scratch that... I just got notice from UPS that my film has been delivered. I'll start working on it tonight! Edited January 29, 2014 by co-exprs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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