Camo painting old tin bass boat?

[Skeeterbait]

I have an old aluminum bass boat from the 70's that is very well outfitted and is my preferred boat for small water. The boat was originally painted a medum brown ahd has held up pretty well, lots of scrapes and chips but no large areas of missing paint. Existing paint though has faded uneven and is pretty flat colored now. Boat also has fresh medium brown seats and I will replace carpet again soon with a brown multicolor carpet.

When I recarpet I am trying to decide if I want to do something to freshen the painted areas. Really hate to go to the trouble to remove everything, strip, and repaint thinking the same chipping and fading is going to rehappen to painted aluminum. Thought about stripping and leaving aluminum raw but this in itself is a big job and raw unpolished aluminum is not very good looking either.

So I am pondering the idea of using the existing flat medium brown as a base color and camo painting the boat in a simple grass and reeds pattern with a darker and lighter colors and some type of stencil. Would only have to tape up and paint visible areas that way, would be much simpler and easier to touch up later as needed. Would hide uneven fading of existing paint and cover chipped areas. Would use good paint, not spray can, and have paint sprayer on hand to apply.

Not looking to turn it into a duck boat, just freshen the appearance. Interested in any ideas, advise anyone has pro or con. Like I said, just pondering the idea right now.

[B.R.ONE]

I camo'ed my old tin rig by just painting it first with a sand color paint all over. Then I got a stencil pattern offline and made it. I just held the stencil up beside the boat and spray painted camo colors on it. There is a picture of it on the thread,"show us your tin rig". It's an old alumacraft V bottom.

[Ranger391v]

Look up 'Lock, Stock and Barrel'. I want to say they are in Michigan. Talk to the owner 'Lou'. The man has forgot more about paint than most of us on here ever knew. He has so many color choices it's rediculous. Also, you want his FME (Flat Marine Enamel) paint.

Check out duck hunting boards as well. So many of us on those sites have repainted and HydroTurfed our duck boats that it's rediculous. TONS of good info on those sites.

I've probably painted 5 boats in the last 5 yrs. All have been some form of camo stencil (mostly Mossy Oak Breakup or ShadowGrass). My last one was Nat Gear. I could care less if I EVER paint another boat MOBU or MOSG ...... Nat Gear is the simplest, cheapest, and it works just as good. Also, these colors are not 'standard' Nat Gear colors, but rather what I wanted the pattern to look like.







If you want to see the boat build (b/c it didn't start life NOWHERE near like this) ..... here's a link to a thread I started.

http://www.bbcboards.net/zerothread?id=575175