Paintin' ...

New hanging tree-stand and ladder sections pre-painted ...

     Howdy-do!  Hope you & yours are all doin' fine in this wonderful summertime sunshine!  Yeah, it's been a month since my last post; but, on top of all the other activities and honey-do's I've got goin' on, I'm already gearin'-up for huntin' ... and I ain't talkin' 'bout deer.  Last fall, I had bought me a brand-spankin' new hangin' tree-stand and a 20' ladder to put me in a different perspective while I'm hangin' 'round out there in them woods!  But instead of scoutin' for deer, I'll be spendin' my summer lookin' for a different type of critter.  And as far as huntin' it goes, I got two choices; I can sit on the ground all camo'd-up in my new Browning Strutter huntin' chair, which is the up-close & personal approach.  Or ... I can sit 10' to 20' up in a tree and see a bunch more terrain.  The thing is, the Browning Strutter was aleady camouflaged, but my new tree-stand was not.  And most tree trunks are brown, tan and gray tones ... but that new ladder was a dark olive-drab.  Well, it pretty-much well stuck-out like a sore thumb against most trees.  Bein' a hunter ... I wanted a more natural look.  Read-on, and I might teach y'all a trick or two about paintin' ...

     Needin' a tree-stand that was light and packable, I chose the Summit Raptor RSX Eagle ... which is all-welded aluminum weighin' a mere 7.2 lbs. and sports a 21" wide x 28" deep durable platform.  Its foam-stuffed saddle-style seat is comfortable enough and was camouflaged in Realtree AP; however, the aluminum frame was not, which is one of the reasons for this post.  It, by the way, came powder-coated in a dark olive-drab.  The ladder that I purchased was the Millennium 20' Stick Climber, which weighed a total of 15 lbs. and consists of 5 stack-able 4' sections that nest together for easy transport.  Again, this also came in a dark olive-drab finish.  Hell, y'all ... I'd have paid extra for a camo finish, but that option was not offered for either product.  But, with a few colors of flat camo spray-paint and some fresh-picked foliage, I'm fixin' to show y'all how I rectified that minor dilemma!

Various twigs & sprigs to use as nature's stencils ...

     Y'all don't need to be artistic to pull this job off; if you can spray-paint ... you can camouflage.  It does not need to be a perfect, photographic design.  Remember, foliage ain't uniform ... and at a distance any tight patterns look like a "blob" anyways.  The main thing one needs to remember is to attempt to break-up your camouflage paint-job with shadows.  For this method, I prefer to paint startin' with the lighter colors first, and finish-up with darker colors and black.  It's good to be familiar with the trees in the area you are goin' to hunt; however, in my situation ... I'll have this tree-stand set-up in several different patches of woods.  I'd decided to camo my ladder to mimic a very basic bark pattern, but the tree-stand was a different issue.  Due to unfamiliar terrains, I wanted to try and simulate a medley of thicket, piney-woods and hardwoods.  To achieve this effect, I used nature as my stencil.  Walkin' our property, I collected various branches, sprigs and leaves to stencil with.  Most stencils use the interior space to spray-paint within; however, in the case of my stand I did the opposite; sprayin' over the different elements that I had collected.

The base-coat is basically a free-styled woodland camo ...

     As far as any tree-stand goes ... the only thing that really needs camouflagin' is the bottom, 'cause its what anything might see from the forest floor lookin' up.  I used various colors of camo paint to spot-spray in large areas, and then used my foliage stencils to break everything up.  I began paintin' in layers ... just a little at a time, which allowed both the tree-stand and my stencils to dry in-between coats.  I'll be huntin' in full camo (a Tru-Leaf Mossy Oak Break-Up suit) and the tree-stand's seat is already camo'ed in Realtree AP.  The final result is the bottom of my newly painted stand shown in the photo below.  The variations of all three patterns will help break-up any uniformity while helpin' me to blend-in to most heavy foliage.  In years past, I had been in bow huntin' situations in the Sam Houston National Forest where other hunters had walked right past me and even directly under my stand ... not noticing that I was even there!  Now, I'm not claimin' that this was due to any home-made camo paint job I'd had on my old ladder & Loc-On stand.  It could have actually been due to those particular hunter's poor observational skills; however, I'm sure the painted ladder & stand helped my old set-up to not stand-out as much ...

Well, it's ain't Mossy Oak or Realtree quality ... but it works!  At a distance lookin' up, this once uniform shape is broken-up.

My improvised junk-mail bark stencil!

     The harder part of this project was paintin' the ladder-sections.  Viewing most tree bark from any distance, the pattern is obviously vertical; however, the olive-drab ladder stuck-out due to bein' darker and monotone.  Actually, it was pretty-friggin' obvious at most any distance that somethin' was amiss!  Here was the trick that I used to give the illusion of bark: I took a junk-mail magazine cover and slightly wet the folded edge between the two staple points.  I then pinched-out about ¼" off of the middle of the folded spine.  When the folded cover was opened, I now had an irregular vertical stencil to simulate the indentations and creases in bark.  I used base-coats of gray and tan to spot-spray the ladder sections, and then used my junk-mail bark stencil to break-it up usin' those same two colors as well as dark brown and black.  If I'd had the time or wanted to get fancy, I could've used a large textured sponge to go back over everything in a light gray or dark brown to further give the illusion of natural bark.  I chose to only paint the front & sides of each ladder section, because the backs face the tree and are a non-issue.

The finished faux-bark treatment; these ladder sections may stand-out here, but blend well at a distance against a tree.

     Here's a quick comparison of what the painted ladder looks like against a tree.  The section of ladder on the right is actually the back-side of another section, to show y'all what the dark olive drab would've looked like if I hadn't bothered to do any paintin'.  Hopefully, next time I'll be able to post an update after one of my upcommin' trips ... showin' y'all what this finished project looks like deployed somewhere out there in them woods!  And hopefully, one of my buddies can take a few shots of me in full camo as I would appear in an actual huntin' situation.  But, before I could even think of usin' any of this freshly-painted gear out in the field, I had to thoroughly wash everything with a non-scented detergent.  I then left everything outside in the elements to acclimate.  To seal the deal, I'll give everything a good dousin' with a non-scent spray after it has set-out in the weather for a couple of weeks.  The last thing I need is to get busted by my prey due to everything reekin' of fresh spray-paint!  As long as my fat-ass doesn't fall asleep, take a dive or get knocked out-of a dang tree ... you'll get to see just how well this 'lil paintin' lesson pans-out.  Chuckle-chuckle, y'all ... I always use a safety harness & climbin' strap!  Until then, y'all stay hydrated and be cool runnin' 'round out there in them woods ...