The Born Again SKS part 3

This is the third and final installment of this build, see parts one and two

Now that we have everything to assemble a tacticool SKS, we need to do something about the finish.

My nephew and I discussed the issue and decided upon a camo finish, but not just any camo finish. A camouflage finish of this Vietnam era.

The Tiger stripe camo was developed and used for the jungle combat in Vietnam by the US Special Forces and the French who came before. 
This is kind of ironic, using American made parts and French designed camo on a Chinese built gun used to supply the Communist Insurgents that we fought against in a war the camo was designed for in the 1st place......

Actually commandeering the enemies weapons is pretty common in war, so maybe this isn't so ridiculous?

At any rate we will attempt to duplicate this:

  There are multiple versions, this is what we will try for. The gun is already black (we will paint the bare metal parts flat black) after taping off the black we will paint the rest in olive drab and foliage green with a bit of tan/khaki for accent

You may have noticed that these "tiger stripes" go horizontally, where as most people paint their stripes vertically.

We want it to look more like this one from 762 Precision 

I started by taping off random areas with blue 3M painters tape. These areas will remain black.

I then painted 2 coats of the OD Green

I then painted 2 coats of Foliage Green, but not across everything, I painted it in vertical strips, so only part of the open areas will have the lighter green.

Once the tape was removed you could see the stripes

Then I blended the edges with khaki and a small paint brush.

Then I went back over the khaki with alternating colors of green


I have all the parts cleaned and the hand guard installed on the gas tube. I scuffed up some of the parts with 220 grit sand paper.
Now I will paint them flat black and begin taping off the stripes.

Here is the gun finished, in the natural light the nutmeg color looks much more subdued

A close up of the flash hider and Tapco sight insert

References
333 Export Saigon