20 gauge single-shot project gun

[Hayudog]

Looks like you are on the fast track.  I always hate to wait for paint to dry.....Best if I paint and then go fishing.

[gatrkyhntr70]

lookin good!!

[gobblergls]

I applied the dark brown this morning and stripped the tape at lunch.  I'll hand paint the black.  I'll tone out the lightest color, khaki.  I've got an idea of a unique black design in a female stencil.   After a week of the gun in the attic, I'll spray on an acrylic matte finish overcoat or two.  I'll then mount sling and FFIII( once its back from Burris).
Lessons learned:
Prepare surfaces; do more than just degrease.  Rough up with sandpaper.  I eventually had to remove the first paint job and remove all bluing with medium emery paper.  YMMV. The gun was new out of the box and I should have realized that the slick bluing wouldn't hold paint as well as the bare metal.   I had tried degreasing then painting, but the paint wouldn't adhere to the bluing very well.  Prime with two coats before topcoating.  I had to use a plastic friendly primer for the stock and forend and an automotive body primer for the metal.  Between topcoats, allow 24 between coats hours to cure.  Otherwise, curing will be delayed.
It is easier to use male stencils rather than female stencil on a shotgun due to its compound curves.  I bought online stencils for $6 at http://www.potato-gun-plans.com/category/paint-military-camo-stencils/.  The instructions suggested using male stencils on some tasks.  After getting an idea what they looked like, it was easier to freehand cut my own designs. This will save a lot of time.  I covered both sides of 8" x 11" cardstock with painter's blue tape.  I bought the 1.75" edge block tape at HD.  I cut out the design with scissors.  On each male cut out, I had two stencils, front and back.  The remaining female stencil was a source of material for more male stencils.  The easiest way to lift the tape off the card was to "tease" it off at a narrow end with the point of an Xacto knife and then lift with tweezers.  When you tape each layer, visualize that you will be preserving the color underneath.  I wanted to maximize the lighter colors so I kept that in mind.  I waited 24 hours before applying the next coat.  After the last coat, I used a plastic spudgeon ( a tool for removing cellphone cases) to lift one end of the tape and pulled with tweezers.  I had zero paint lifts with this technique.

I can't give enough praise about the advice given and work done by William Lambert of Sumtoy.  Same can be said about  making the TSS9s available and the work and $$ he has spent developing loads.  Tungsten shot is in the top 3 of modern turkey hunting innovations as far as I'm concerned.

[Hayudog]

Looks good.  And it looks like you've had fun doing it.  Great tips.  I've got a new youth model arriving soon.  Barrel arrives at Sumsoy for the Remington Baikal on Thursday.  This has been a fun thread to keep tabs on. 

[SumToy]

Looks good. 

[TrackeySauresRex]

Great pattern. Looks awesome!

[gobblergls]

[Deputy 14]

That's awesome with the turkeys shadowed in. 

[ncturkey]

Sweet looking shotgun. What kind of choke does it take? I would assume Rem Choke or Pro-Bore Chokes.

[Hayudog]

Very cool.  Wish I would have thought of it.  May have to do a west coast edition!

[gobblergls]

Sweet looking shotgun. What kind of choke does it take? I would assume Rem Choke or Pro-Bore Chokes.

Thanks.  Tru-choke threads, 44 tpi.  Sumtoy .5625 choke.  Gil

[gobblergls]

Gobbler Stencil:
I bought a sheet of mylar from a local blue print shop for a dollar. It's the size used for real estate survey plats.  Adapting a technique from the early whaling days, where whalers would paste magazine drawings on sperm whale teeth and with a pin, prick the outline of the drawing with a pin into the tooth to start the process of scrimshaw, I found an image online of a gobbler walking.  I printed it out and used temporary spray mount to fasten it to the thin mylar.  With my Xacto knife, I carefully cut the image out creating a male and female stencil.  Stubborn bits of the paper stuck to the mylar but I soaked it in water and easily rubbed the remainder off.  I used the female stencil to image the stock.  The coathanger-fishing weight, wine cork and unseen toothpick on the blindside of the cork, is a "doofus".  I use it to hold down surface mount parts for electronic soldering.  I taped the mylar to the stock and a portion of the stencil had to be held down with the doofus for better contact with the convex surface of the stock.  On the more radical curves, the mylar would not fully adapt to the complex curves.  I made the stencil out of the blue tape, with several overlapping layers fastened to cardstock to give the stencil more body.  I used the mylar stencil to spray the image onto the tape and cut it out with the Xacto.  One has to carefully peel the tape away from the stock, holding down the male image with a pointed object and lift around the edges. The tape stencil has limited life and is a "shape shifter" so it has to be finagled into position, but it does a good job in the curved areas.   I masked off the shotgun with newspaper, tape and trash bags.  It only took 10-15 minutes for the image to dry to the touch.  I've got 9 months to think of what to do next.  The Mad Russian has been a fun project and thanks for looking over my shoulder and the kind comments.

[TrackeySauresRex]

And the crowd goes wild!        Great finishing touch!

[killdee]

I really like it, maybe a trail of tracks next or a tom on a limb gobbling.... I bought the mossy bottomland film to finish my 870 20 but yours and a couple more custom paint jobs is prompting me to hurry up and find my next project gun so I can paint it. I had already started rounding up stuff for a paint job before I ordered the mossy film. I appreciate this post so's I can avoid making a bad paint job on the metal parts. I build Homebrew trail cameras and have been custom 3-d'ing and camo painting them for many years now.

[mohall64]

Great job and thanks for posting how you did things.  I am thinking about doing this to one of my Baikal over and unders.