[Jornum1]

I am starting my first attempt at painting my tactical ION.
I bought a duracoat 4 color Wilderness Mirageflage kit from Houts enterprises.
All the painting will be done by a small airbrush
Everything was cleaned and media blasted prior to painting
I wont be painting my Q loader at this point. i want to see what it looks like plain before I make a decision. I have read on here painting the Q loaders is very difficult.

The base marker is a new ION XE
upgrades are:
-custom milled tactical body
-custom milled sight riser
-Freak back, All American Front barrel
-AKA 2 liter regulator
-Q Loader with 90 degree elbow
-Trinity folding stock
-red dot sight

Here is a pic of the marker when I was in my testing phase of the body. Both the body and riser were only roughly milled at this point(and weighed a ton!).
I slapped on a few coats of rattle can flat black just for testing at the field. So dont flame it!



Here is a shot of the body, barrel, reg, and grip frame stripped and ready for paint.



Here are some pics after my base coat of wilderness tan was applied




What does everyone think?

-2 questions I have:

1. The body of my marker has a ton of slots on it. What is the best way to lay stencils over these? Should I fold them inside the slots, or lay them flat across them?

2.Do most people assemble the marker and lay the stencils, or keep it apart and try to lay them out?
I have read where people have done it both ways.
I was thinking of assembling it, laying the stencils and painting the black.
Then laying more stencils and laying the brown.
Then disassemble the marker and painting everything the green.

Thanks for everyones thoughts and help in advance
Jornum

[Desert Wookie]

I lay down the basecoat disassembled, and then reassemble it to do the remaining work.

As for the slots, If you lay flat, you will get fuzziness inside the slots. Doesn't look so good.
If you have the patience, I would lay the stencil inside the slots. It will require lots of custom xacto-clade cutting and you might want to use a hairdryer to make the stencils more maneuverable. Take your time with this. you rush it and it looks like poop. This is a lifetime paintjob, so work accordingly.

Other tips, work in a well ventilated area. Duracoat is chock full of cyanates and other nasty chemicals.
Next, go easy on the paint. Duracoat is thick stuff. Apply just enough to color the weapon. If you go heavy, you will end up with high ridges from the stencils. (You will get some raised edges, but you can mitigate the problem by going easy on the paint.

Other than that it looks like you are on the right path for a sweet looking marker.

G'luck!

[Jornum1]

Desert Wookie, on Feb 6 2008, 01:49 PM, said:

As for the slots, If you lay flat, you will get fuzziness inside the slots. Doesn't look so good.
If you have the patience, I would lay the stencil inside the slots. It will require lots of custom xacto-clade cutting and you might want to use a hairdryer to make the stencils more maneuverable. Take your time with this. you rush it and it looks like poop. This is a lifetime paintjob, so work accordingly.

The slots are not too deep on the sides and bottom >1/8th of a inch. So bending the stencils hopefully wont be that tough. The slots on the top are much deeper, so I might have to cut those.
I will have to experiment with it.

One more thing, I have true strip from duracoat for cleaning. Can I use that in between coats to get off any oils or anything like that, or would that harm the duracoat I already sprayed? Maybe I could just use some denatured alcohol?

Thanks Wookie, I have read a lot of your posts and cruised your site. Your work is great.

[Desert Wookie]

Jornum1, on Feb 6 2008, 01:16 PM, said:

One more thing, I have true strip from duracoat for cleaning. Can I use that in between coats to get off any oils or anything like that, or would that harm the duracoat I already sprayed? Maybe I could just use some denatured alcohol?

No need to degrease between coats. As long as you dont get any oils on the weapon you should be fine. (just make sure you hands are clean when you handle the weapon and you'll be fine. I actually wear medical gloves while handling the weapon. The gloves dont protect against the chemicals, but they help keep everything clean.

Good luck, it looks like you are on the right path!

[Big Bone]

Couldn't of said it better myself, thanks Wookie. It's looking great Jornum.


BB

This post has been edited by Big Bone: 07 February 2008 - 01:33 PM

[RAYC22B]

Yeah its looks great and you seem to be taking your time which is key!Keep up the great work!

[PaintballXD]

And people said its impossible to make a tactical blackcell type body kit for an ion xe

[Jornum1]

PaintballXD, on Feb 17 2008, 06:44 PM, said:

And people said its impossible to make a tactical blackcell type body kit for an ion xe

Ha, why would they say that? You just need to make it a little longer in the back. I have never seen a blackcell ION in person, but its basically the same thing.

And I will have more pics tomorrow. I was away last week on vacation. I just got back yesterday.
I tried to finish before I left. But I didnt get the last color down. I didnt want to rush laying down the last set of stencils.
I will post some pics tomorrow of the finished product! Hopefully!
Thanks again to everyone who helped me.

[Kodiak]

If you get a chance post that up on the Qloader forum. Lots of people would love to see that!

[Jornum1]

Kodiak, on Feb 17 2008, 09:04 PM, said:

If you get a chance post that up on the Qloader forum. Lots of people would love to see that!

No problem Kodiak

I will get some of the finished product up when its all finished and assembled.



Here are some updated pics. I am almost done. I have all 4 coats on and peeled off all the stencils. Now I just have some touching up with some female stencils to fix a few blemishes. Although I am out of paint! I am going to get some more next day aired to me today because I was planning to play on Sat. I will get a small bottle of each, and probably paint my tac 8 while I am at it. Should be pretty easy.

All in all I am very happy with it. Its always easy to see where you made mistakes, and for a first try I think I did well. You can tell as I went from the first set of stencils to the last, I got better at laying them down. Using a heat gun to help form the stencils around corners and such helped a lot. I need to make th pattern a little more dense on the body. There is a bit too much green showing in some spots. I will add a few more black and dark browns in there.

Here is a pic with the black painted




Here is some of the almost finished product!




You can see in this pic what I was trying to match my pattern to.




Here is a pic of the whole marker just placed together, it isnt actually assembled.

This post has been edited by Jornum1: 19 February 2008 - 06:46 AM

[Jornum1]

Couple more pics of it partially assembled

[PaintballXD]

I'd like to see that in the woods because the green in your digi almost looks too bright. Other that that it looks very professional. I have one question, how did you make the body kit for your xe, and if it wasnt hard to do can you pm me the dimensions for it? I would like to make one myself.

[Big Bone]

Looks really good! Very nice job.

BB

[Jornum1]

PaintballXD, on Feb 21 2008, 09:28 PM, said:

I'd like to see that in the woods because the green in your digi almost looks too bright. Other that that it looks very professional. I have one question, how did you make the body kit for your xe, and if it wasnt hard to do can you pm me the dimensions for it? I would like to make one myself.

I have thought the same thing. But here in the North East I think it should be ok. Plus I haven't put the clear on yet, so that will take some of the shine out of it hopefully. I should be receiving my resupply of paint today or Monday so I can do my touch ups and finish her up with the matte clear. Those colors are the Wilderness Mirage flage package from Houts.

Making the body wasnt hard, you just need to have some machining experience. I am not a machinist by any means, but I do know the basics. I milled the body from a old piece of hex aluminum tubing we had laying around the shop. I had to bore the inside diameter to size, and locate the feedneck, and mounting screw dimensions. Then I milled a slot in the middle for the air lines and eyes. That was the hard part. After that I just took excess material off and tried to make it look as light, and clean as possible.
I would have to measure it again, I seem to have misplaced my dimensions. I dont really feel comfortable letting my dimensions go just because i am not a professional, and cant guarantee they are 100% accurate. PM me if you want some "estimates or advice" I can try to draw something up on autcad to help you out.

I plan on converting this one into a "sniper" marker eventually and building a new, more inovative design. I would like to try to invert the breach and make a bottom feed Q loader with a "G36ish" look.
But that will probably be later in the summer. I need to finish the work on my bike before I start another project!

[PaintballXD]

alright thanks, ill pm you if i decide to make my own body kit, don't worry i know how to use autocad and i could probably get my dad to help me out with the milling because he is part of the sheet metal union and he could help me out alot with all that stuff. ill pm you if i need dimensions but ill probably just strip my gun my self and measure because i want to make my own design. Im thinking of making it work like a q-loader so ill add a feed design to it.