Spray Painting AEG M4

[TheOnlySystem]

Hello Everybody,

I have been airsofting for a while now and i want to start customizing and personlizing my guns. So I thought i should start by spray painting a camo/images on to my M4, I have looked online on how to do it using stencil skills, but i was wondering if it is nessesarry to disassemble the gun to do so, becuase i am actually not very familiar with the internals of my gun and will probably be incapable of reassembling it in the end. I was wondering if i could just mask/tape the important parts, such as the barrel to not let my gun be damaged by the paint. If it is neccesarry to dissassemble my gun a link to a tutorial/guide will useful

 

Thanks.

[Mike636]

The only thing I would do is remove the barrel and hop unit and just mask over everything else

[Airsoft_Mr B]

I would recommend it, but it's not necessary. Just make sure everything important is well masked over like you said.

[Chock]

Disassembly is not necessary at all, a bit of tidy masking with proper masking tape (from a cheap pound shop) will do. To mask intricate areas or fiddly bits, use Blutack and mold it around the part you wish to cover.

 

What is more important when painting, is to work methodically and not rush things. Get the spray gun (or aerosol can) moving before you start spraying and stop spraying before you stop it moving, in this way you are never stationary when spraying and this will avoid getting blotches of paint. Lighter coats are better and will dry faster. Spray from a distance of around ten inches or so, as this will avoid blasting the paint onto the surface, if you are too close when spraying, you'll get an orange peel effect caused by the propellant blast. So spray lightly and give things time to dry before going again with another coat. Do it outside in a well ventilated area and wear a spray mask to prevent breathing in paint vapours. If you can, choose a dry day to do your spraying, and if it is windy, wet the floor of the surrounding area, as this prevents grit from blowing up in a gust of wind and landing on your paint. Make sure your weapon is grease-free when you paint it, i.e. give it a damn good clean before you start painting.

 

You can hold big fern leaves or rags above the surface to quickly mask off areas and then spray past their edges to get nice natural patterns, the further away from the surface you hold them, the more feathering you will achieve on the edges of your paint. Keep in mind that the objective of camouflage is twofold; 1) blending in with terrain colours and - more importantly - 2) breaking up easily recognisable outlines to make guessing the range harder. So paint accordingly, i.e. imagine what direction an enemy is likely to see your weapon from, and try to break up the outline of it when viewed from that direction. Think about the main colours of the terrain you normally skirmish in and go with those.

[Hibernator]

Some tissue stuffed (gently) into the flash hider and magwell will be all you really need. That stops paint getting down the barrel and into the hop.

 

Maybe some tape as suggested round sight posts and trigger etc if you don't want those sprayed. Don't forget to move the selector switch after a couple of coats or you'll end up with a nice black outline everytime you change fire mode