While waiting for all my parts to arrive, I decided to pass the time by painting the Bell and Carlson M40 stock. Originally, black with grey spider webbing, I decided it needed to blend in more with the great outdoors so I chose Multicam for my pattern. I went down to the local hardware store and picked up seven cans of Rust-Oleum spray paint. I layered colors mostly from their “camouflage” series which are very flat – sand, khaki, earth brown, Army green, deep forest green, and the only non-camouflage color satin nutmeg. Each layer was followed up with a matte clear coat. The clear coat wasn’t entirely necessary but I figured it would help the finish hold up a little better. The process itself was tricky and intricate, never having sprayed a camouflage pattern before ans attempting multicam may not have been the easiest choice. I made all my stencils by hand. I sandwiched wax paper between painter’s tape so that each cut yielded two stencils. I drew the outlines free hand using a multicam pattern as reference. After thoroughly cleaning the stock and masking off the area I didn’t want paint on, I started with a solid layer of the lightest color, sand. Once dry, I randomly put on several stencils and then proceeded with the next color, earth brown. This process was repeated many times, never removing any stencils until all the paint layers were down. This is how you get that multi-layer multicam pattern. The last two layers of paint were actually two colors sprayed in a diagonal striped pattern. The first striped pattern makes a two-toned stenciled area and the final stripes gives a two-toned background color. I impatiently waited for these final colors to dry and then removed all the masking tape stencils. What was left was a multicam stock that, for my first ever attempt, turned out pretty good!
