The article in the last issue offers an excellent techinque, but also steps upon one of my pet peeves: pioneer tools.
I know
why we paint the tools that way, but it is no prototypical. My experience with Unc' Sam is that everything but everything gets painted (sometimes without removing it from the vehicle :)).
Have I done it? Yes, sure. Nowadays, I will, so that I can drybrush a a "base" color overthe metal or wood parts, to show wear. Or, I use a thin wash to show lighter wear. For "like new," I use a similar but different color--black green on metal & medium green for wood on an OD vehicle. This gives the contrast we want.
Did think it was apt, that the rifle in the wood grain article was an M1 Carbine. The carbine was fitted with stained birch stocks in '44-45, and those stocks are the only ones I have ever seen with enough wood grain showing to be visible, given scale effect, at any scale less than, say, 1/4 or so.
That's just my opinion, though.