Colours are very much one of our specialties. The colour in our stocks is pigmented gel coat and is part of the stock and we’ll gladly try to match any colour you specify. Of course we have our standards like dark blue, canoe green and bright red etc. for those who don’t have a particular shade in mind. We have often threatened to charge extra for plain black, but haven’t yet – we like the variety. The biggest problem in specifying color is how to describe it without actually having a sample. You can’t. For this reason we use the Pantone color book as our sample. The Pantone book is standard around the world for printing inks and is easy to find. Any print shop or artists supply store should have one you can look at. Not to mention the fun you can have going to your local printer to pick the color of your next rifle! We have the same book here and use it to mix pigment for your stock. All you have to do is give us the PMS number (i.e. PMS 300 is a blue and 032 is a red). There are several PMS colour schemes now so be sure your book matches the 300 and 032 mentioned above.
You can also send us a colour sample to match to. You can go to a local paint store and send us a couple of paint chips as samples. Please refrain from picking a color like “84 Mustang Blue” as we don’t have time to visit a body shop to see the colour. Also, sending us a computer file really won’t work because monitors can be wildly different. We don’t do overall fluorescent colours or solid metallics. Most stocks are available in either a gloss or matte finish. Please remember that while we do our best to colour match exactly, some colours are very difficult to match; for this reason we don’t offer guaranties on colour.
One of our most popular effects has become known as “Vermont Granite,” a name given by one of our clients. It started as a metallic silver granite effect on top of a solid background color and has changed to include almost any color imaginable (see color samples). And everybody knows that granite is tougher than marble!
Texturing is available on all our stocks, it comes in light, medium and “you’d better wear gloves” roughness grades. Please specify a preference upon ordering your FCI stock. We do have some models where texture is built in (GBF and several sporters) and we do not charge an additional fee since it is built into the mould. The way we texture a plain stock is to add a clear overcoat on multi color stocks and as a solid on a one color stock. Adding a heavy texture on a multi colour stock may be a bit cloudy.
