Technique

While the vast proportion of blasters I feature are PTWs, PTW owners don’t have a monopoly on authenticity and attention to detail.

Craig has a lot of nice blasters, which are all finished very well indeed. His Marui M1a1 Thompson is sublime. It’s has been kitted out with genuine wartime woodwork and a bit of wear to the metal:

Still with me, M4 fans? 🙂

However, I resisted the temptation to write a blog entitled, Got Wood? when Craig told me about his L119a1 painting technique.

“Painting was a two stage process. I gave the L119a1 an initial paint and rubbed it back.”

“I then painted my main scheme over the top, so as wear occurs the ‘old’ scheme comes through. As if in the field, an operator may top up the paint if unable to clean it back.”

The effort involved in this isn’t to be taken lightly. It’s the equivalent of doing two paint jobs and one half paint strip. You have to really care about what you’re doing to give a blaster that sort of treatment. Balls deep.