I need to know how to camo a boat

I bought a 14ft. jon boat today and my next step is to camo it. What is the best way to do it without spending alot of money?

check out macks prairie wings website and go to duck boat camo. they carry camoclad kits and they make some camo spray paint kits (styx river) i believe.

i spray a base color as close to muddy water as i can find . then take leaves ( fake ones from wally world work best ) and hold them to the side of the boat and spray over them to create a "negative". lastly get a few branches and dip them in a moss green or grey and "whip" the boat with it. this puts lots of pattern over the area. repeat with a charcoal color for shadows .

Godwin14 said:

I bought a 14ft. jon boat today and my next step is to camo it. What is the best way to do it without spending alot of money?

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Whats a lot of money?

Rattle Can it...

What's rattle can

Godwin14 said:

What's rattle can

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spray paint

As far as paint goes, Parker duckboat paint is a very durable, flat toned paint, that if applied correctly, will last a long time. You can find it at Cabela's for about $40.00/Gal. I used the hunter green (OD green) as a base, then used the Krylon camo paint for the camo outline breaking.

Before you even think about applying the paint, you want to make sure your prep work is in place first. You are dealing with aluminum, which is difficult to get paint to adhere to. What you need to do first is to clean any bare aluminum and cut any oxidation off of the surface. You can use sandpaper or a wire brush on a drill, but you want to scuff it up and basically make it good and shiny. If the boat already has paint on it, all you need to do is to lightly scuff the paint with some 120 grit sandpaper so that the paint will adhere to the existing paint. Any bare aluminum will have to be sprayed with a self etching primer. The self etching primer has a built in acid etch that will grip itself to the aluminum and only has to be lightly sprayed on.

Once you have the primer on you can paint the base coat on the boat. I used a wagner electric power sprayer on mine, but I've heard that a foam roller will make a slick looking job as well, but may be hard to get into the tight cracks.

You will have to decide for yourself how complex your camo job will be. They have all kinds of patterns available that look real good up close, but what you want is something that is virtually invisible at a distance when set up. I almost ordered one of the commercial camo kits for extending my camo until I was hunting and got 50 yards away from my boat and could barely make it out. I decided to leave it like I had it.

Here are a few pictures of my project.

Follow Feral ones advice.. it works great just stay away from making the "shadows" with a dark color because shadows are naturally occuring. Ever noticed how most camo clothing looks like a dark blob from a distance? Its because of the "shadows" that are in the print.

Rustoleum camo paint @ wally world...then use your imagination.

i did a 12 ft jon boat for about 50 bucks in spray paint from Wal Mart. i cut my own designs out of posterboard and laminated it. It was ALOT of work doing it by myself.

we made a stencil out of thin wood with a jigsaw to make this grass looking pattern, then held it to the boat and rattle canned over. not the best, but it worked this year....just make sure you prep, or you'll be throwing away time and money!
you could also just hold up natural stuff(leafs,sticks,grass,etc.) and make good looking shadows from that.

My boat is an Express so it started out khaki colored. I took camo paint and sprayed splotches on my boat, softball to pie plate sizes. Then I took several pieces of cardboard ( 3ft x 3ft ) and made stencil with them. And then with different colored camo paint sprayed the pattern
onto the boat and motor. Cost about $25.00 in paint.

Cant beat the home made stencils, and the good ol fasioned rattle can. ( camo paint ) Min started out on solid color too, just to give it a backing color.

Speaking of paint, I need t otouch mine up.......those trees pay a tole on the paint during duck season

Talk to chad f, we did his whole boat and built a blind on for less than @ $125. total time was about 4 hrs.

This was my summer project two years ago. This carolina skiff was my first boat I ever owned. After ten years of solid use I decided that she would do better getting a makeover than selling her for minimal dollars.



I sanded the gelcoat, used a stensil and bought some good paint (good paint is the key. There's a guy up in Michigan you can buy good boat paint from made especially for fiberglass and aluminum boats. The parkers sold in cabelas and bass pro is ok)



Of course I got crazy and added neoprene camo carpet, camo seats, and even some red LED loghts under the platform and a Golight spotlight on the front.








Anyway, I spent about a total of 50 hours renovating this skiff and less than $500 on the LED lights, carpet, paint, stensils, and camo seats and black bumpers.

The most expensive item was the GoLight which was another $200 and by the time I was done, I got rid of my old Suzuki engine and got a new Evinrude Etec.

But overall, you can camoflauge a boat for pretty cheap.

I also did my Gheenoe too.

I just used that rust-o-lom paint from wal-mart

Hey Skyjacker what kind of stensil did you use? the boat and canoo look great. Im in the market for a jon boat. So I will be painting one this summer and also my kayaks to take into this small swamp I hunt.

Alan D. said:

Hey Skyjacker what kind of stensil did you use? the boat and canoo look great. Im in the market for a jon boat. So I will be painting one this summer and also my kayaks to take into this small swamp I hunt.

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On the skiff I used shadow grass stencil sold by Mack's Prairie Wing.

For the ghenoe I did my own custom tape job and it actually worked really nicely.

Yea it kind of looked like the canoo had been just taped off but it looks real good man. I hope when i do one it turns out that nice.