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Painting tree stand

BULLHEAD

Junior Member
Need to paint my tree stand this spring. Found a method on Archery Talk called paint swirling and the stand and sticks came out looking great. Has anybody ever tried this? How hard is it to do?
 

Huckleberry Finn

Senior Member
15,973
135
I'd suggest hanging the stand where you can and hitting it with some brown, black, and green rustolium spray paint...it's redneck, takes about 5 minutes, and looks better than you'd think.
 

BULLHEAD

Junior Member
That was my first thought until I saw this done. I am amazed how it came out.
stand3.jpg
 

BULLHEAD

Junior Member
Google swirl painting tree stand and it should come up at the top. i read the forum posts and it sounds pretty easy but you know how that goes. This method is used on guitars and the guy said it is the same process. One guy did a bow on youtube. This process is pretty sweet IMO.
 

jagermeister

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
18,060
223
Ohio
I've been contemplating trying the swirl method on a few things myself. Seems like it'd be pretty easy to do. My advice is just experiment with it small-scale first. Dip a few small test items and see what happens. Once you've got your technique down, dip your stand. I would try to keep it as simple as possible. Don't go crazy on color selection. Pick out a nice base color and spray the stand, then swirl just one or two accent colors. The one I've seen that I thought really turned out great was very simple. The guy used a dull greenish-gray color for the base, then swirled black and brown streaks... mostly black I think. It ended up looking really close to a natural tree bark pattern.
 
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BULLHEAD

Junior Member
The one part I get confused on is the base color. Is it better to spray paint the entire stand with a base coat and then dip the stand for the other colors or do you add the base color in the swirl mix?
 
Pretty cool idea. Actually looks like some of the dipped products you see advertised nowadays. I would probably paint the stand first with a good quality paint like Rustoleum to make sure it is coated as much as you want. If at minimum you could use Rustoleum primer first too.
 

jagermeister

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
18,060
223
Ohio
The one part I get confused on is the base color. Is it better to spray paint the entire stand with a base coat and then dip the stand for the other colors or do you add the base color in the swirl mix?

Spray the base coat first... probably at least 2 or 3 coats.
 

Fluteman

Senior Member
Supporting Member
7,094
146
Southeast Ohio
Man, I believe if I spent all that time giving my stand a purty paint job like that, it wouldn't leave the house! I'd probably have a stump in my mancave to attach it to and use it as my recliner!
 

BULLHEAD

Junior Member
getting stand ready to try this. Going to spray primer on stand first to get a good base going. Getting stand ready for primer is where I'm needing some suggestions. I'm thinking about sanding the entire stand to get down to the aluminum. I have read where you can use a pressure washer and knock off the existing paint or you can sand. I'm wanting to use a palm sander instead of pressure washer. Does anybody have any suggestions as to the best way to do this? Am I wasting time by stripping all the paint off or is this the best method?
 

Ricer2231

Senior Member
getting stand ready to try this. Going to spray primer on stand first to get a good base going. Getting stand ready for primer is where I'm needing some suggestions. I'm thinking about sanding the entire stand to get down to the aluminum. I have read where you can use a pressure washer and knock off the existing paint or you can sand. I'm wanting to use a palm sander instead of pressure washer. Does anybody have any suggestions as to the best way to do this? Am I wasting time by stripping all the paint off or is this the best method?

You could check into getting it sandblasted. I myself don't think you're wasting your time stripping it, I would want the new paint to stick as well as it could. If ya get it down to the bare metal and then get a good base coat on it it should last for years.