(Apologies guys i know a bit long winded but trying to explain why im doing what im doing too)

Hi guys so not 100% where to post this but here it goes. So I have a 2004 mk2 octavia and to which most off you will understand like to rust (well like most cars ) . Well my car started out as a brand new factory order from Aberdeen. It spent its first 4-5 years from what I can see there and most would know they don't have the most forgiving winters with plenty of salt on the roads. So fast word to know and I've had thr car for about 10 years (and about 60k miles put on it) and hasn't let me down . So in the last year she's has started to become very rusty so I'm in the process of treating the surface rust on panels and welding in need outer sills (fingers crossed the inner sills are either fine or salvageable). So as she's the guts of 21 years old and basically my battle bus (dump runs, taking the dog out and basically sits in my works carpark 15 hours a day) so I'm looking at tidying her up to keep her motoring for a while yet as she's only got 147k miles on her . So down to the question in the title has anyone any suggestions on military paint that I could use to roller on (yes I know it's a cheap resto) ? I had thought about using rusty paint too but I'm swaying more to painting her with olive drab or aircraft grey military paint on my drive .

1 hour ago, octaviani said:

I'm swaying more to painting her with olive drab

Talk to a local to you body shop about supplying "NATO Drab anti-radiation paint".

Just be wary of matte/semi gloss paints - they tend to mark very easily are are not the same as the stuff they use on military trucks.

This is why I'm looking for any pointers. I did look into this a good few years back and tried to do my homework. The problem now is there's that many "military" paints about and most seem to offer the same specs but as you said some easily mark so I'm trying to see if anyone had had any experience and advice in which paints are best. I'm looking at a satin finish. The proper stuff from what I read is a CARC paint which I think would be on the expensive side and I'm trying to keep the budget to fix up the car up as small as possible. Plus I'd say carc paint would be on the risky side.

Edited 27 July, 202527 Jul by octaviani

CARC will

a) be very difficult to get hold of

b) very expensive, if you can find it

c) probably not the most fun to spray

It's very cool stuff (works by basically being so hard, any bio/etc can just be washed off.

Doing a roller job won't look very good - I'd rather have rust lol. If you're only concerned about the looks, you could treat the rust and then just wrap the car? Wouldn't be as god as paint, but would be better than a roller job.

If it’s rust underneath, why not clean it up good, then paint the sills and immediate area with black undercoat. Spray the under area with waxoyl or Bilthamber syntax/dynax UC?

Yes that only deals with the undersides/wheel arches and hidden areas, but roller finishing a car would look naff. Might as well just hammerite it at that point 😂

Edited 29 July, 202529 Jul by Monkhai

Clean up and rust inhibitor / converter applied at the very least before any further costings applied should be the plan. IMO.

Edited 29 July, 202529 Jul by Ootohere

From my recollection, the MOD paint needs to be sprayed whilst wearing full IPE.

I was serving many years ago, we used to just spray or brush on. The MOD suffered from a change in the law, this made then liable for there negligence. Needless to say, the week before this law went live we were barred from painting anything with the green or black paint.

A bit late to the party but, I’m still finding my way around.

John