tucker301 Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 I just watched "Shotgun Journal" from yesterday on the PVR. They did a segment on Rainbow Graphics in Italy. Not the people who do Jeff Gordon's race car, Rainbow Graphics applies camo and highly figured woodgrain finishes to gunstocks. They also do metal treatments, and from the looks of things, Benelli's "carbon fiber" finishes. One thing I learned is that, at least with their process, the camo graphics are applied a little differently than what I'd thought. The stocks are prepped and cleaned. They are then dipped into a tank which holds a piece of the printed film floating on top of a solution. The kicker is that the film is merely a means of holding the inks in the pattern until they are immersed into the solution. Once the film is suspended in the solution, the film itself releases and leaves the ink floating in the desired pattern. The stock is then pushed through the suspended ink and the ink pattern wraps around the stock. The worker then sloshes the stock around in the tank a little bit to make sure the film backing is fully released and the excess ink is dissipated. Then the piece is lifted out and sent to oversprayed with a marine varnish. In actuality, the stock is painted with the inks, not decaled as I'd assumed. Not sure if these folks do Benelli's camo finishes, but I did see the guy holding a Nova stock/receiver piece while explaining the process. The really cool stuff was how they've developed a technique by which they can apply a highly figured Turkish Walnut finish to any plain old hardwood stock. Once it's varnished, it appears to be a $1,000 stock, but is in reality a clever look-alike. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdkidaho Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 -Very- cool. Wonder how expensive it is, and it's too bad it's overseas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IdahoDucker Posted March 5, 2006 Share Posted March 5, 2006 It's available in the US. Search "camo dipping" on google. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wallhanger54 Posted March 5, 2006 Share Posted March 5, 2006 If you own a Beretta with a "wood" stock then you probably already have one. The've been doing it for years. And, with the decline in any decent wood anymore, it will probably soon become the status quo for most production wood stocks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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