JerseyRider
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- Oct 22, 2009
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How to get the most out of your spray can
Tip 1
Prep, Prep and even more Prep
You really can’t prepare enough when it comes to any kind of spray painting. Now with spraying a airsoft gun there is really only 3 main steps in prep
1. Rough Up! Rough up the surface you are painting with a high grade sand paper, I use 320 grade emery paper which is basically the same as normal sand paper. The point of this is to give the paint a rough surface to cling onto. Think of it as you trying to rock climb (thinking about you here Dave) it’s going to be much easier to cling onto a rock face that has plenty of knacks and crannies, however with a completely flat rock face you’re going to have a hard time hanging on! It’s the same with paint and surfaces
2. Mask Up! Make sure you mask up areas that you don’t want sprayed with masking tape. This ensures that if your spray can gets a bit wild your nice upper receiver will not be ruined!
3. Primer Up! Use a base layer of Acrylic based Primer (more on that later on) so that the final coat of your desired coloured paint has the best surface possible to cling onto. Also it looks pretty cool when it wears off.
Tip 2
Primer
Now I touched on that on the first tip but I am going to explain in more detail now.
Use Acrylic based Primer first as a base layer to help the paint cling even more to the surface. Going back to the rock climber (Dave) because he chose to pick the “rough” cliff face he is having a easier time climbing the bad boy, but over time his bare hands are starting to lose their grip on the rock face if Dave puts rubber coated climbing gloves on he will find that it is much easier to grip the cliff face and he will be able to do it for longer. The same principle is applied here, with primer being the rubber coated climbing gloves, helping the paint cling better and for longer to the surface
Now primer comes in different colours, the colour of primer you choose depends on what colour your putting on top of it. Now if you’re spraying it Matt Black or any deep dark shade of colour you can get away with pretty much any colour of primer. But if your say spraying something a snow camouflage look and using a lot off light shades the primer must be lighter then the colour or you will end up seeing the primer through the paint. The most popular colour of primer is Gray because, as long as you build up the layers, you can get away with pretty much any colour on top of it
Tip 3
Method
Don’t just jump into it because you will end with all sorts of problems. Take time, read the back of the can and the instructions are on there, but I found that I have developed a better way to do it especially if your new to all this.
Hold the can about 30cm away and just practice swishing the can up and down, back and forth in the direction you want to spray to get used to the motion as it can be awkward the first time. Then except holding down the nozzle contently try pulsing when the can Is over the surface. If you’re finding that most of it is not getting onto the surface start moving slowly in, but it should never take just one coat. The key is to slowly build up the layers. This way you will get the best finish with no drip marks by using the minimal amount of paint.
Do this and allow about 10-15 minutes between coats (depending on the paint you’re using, check the back of the can for more details) and you should have a nice flat finish
That is all I can remember for the moment... I will update if I remember
Thanks for reading and happy spraying!
Jack
