Gilbert,

So take this all with a grain of salt as this is the first time painting.

The gun was a DeVilbliss Starting Line kit from Amazon. I'm not sure how it compares to other guns. I kinda feel like it wasn't that great. My only other item to compare to is shooting rustoleum thinnned down out of a harbor freight 9 $ special. Which I really liked.

When it came to sanding. This is the process I used and was recommended to me. This was on an old truck with scratches, dents, faded paint, and just generally WELL USED. also all the panel colors did not match.

DA 80 -120 grit - This shows all dents and dings and unlevel areas. Those got stripped and repaired (well most of them, I could have done a better job)

Block - 220 then 320. This shows waves in the metal. Between each level of block sanding I shot a high build 2K primer. Any place you forget or miss sanding here will show up when you spray. Each level is designed to remove the scratches from the previous level.

Then I wet Sanded 400 and finally wetsanded with 1000 (some areas got a 2000 wet sand).

Now when i sprayed I did one very light 'grip' coat, then two heavy layers. Before i started spraying I used a grease and wax remover ( i think the one from advanced worked well because I could screw in a regular spray bottle sprayer into it, which meant no pouring or waste).

I had a flash time of 15 minutes at 70 degrees. Since the shop stayed warmer than that I think i flashed in about 10 or so. After flash, before the following coats i wiped everything of with a tack rag. I believe the tack rag helped keep a lot of crap out of the paint.

It turned into a very time consuming process. But I can see everywhere where I didn't do enough.

The biggest problems I ran in to was the reducer - the stuff i original got was for lower air temperature - you want a very SLOW reducer for hotter air temps over 65 f.

Overlaps - some areas where not enough - some where too much.

horizontal vs vertical. I found it much easier to spray panels that were vertical instead of horizontal.

I think it will look good at 50 ft, but at 5 it will not hold up to inspection. But such is life. I learned a lot and am happy with it. Most everything was purchased from amazon. Blocks, rolls of sand paper (i like rolls with adhesive backing), tack rags, guns, water filter for air line.

Paint came from auto paint 4 less . com and reducer was Nason from NAPA. All said and done i probably spent 1k on everything and a whole lot of time.