DIY Paint Jobs

I had quite the experience so far painting the engine bay of my 69 Barracuda. I've never done anything outside of rattle can painting before. I read a lot, spoke to the paint supplier a million times and got a lot of good advice from the folks here. After sandblasting and prep, I did a coat of self-etching primer. That stuff is evil. Make sure you are wearing a mask and nuclear/chemical/biological protective clothing when spraying that stuff.

That coat came out well and next was the primer. The first coat was good, then I left the project for a couple of weeks as work got busy. I scuffed that coat and proceeded to spray another coat of the primer. Me beinga dumb ***, I forgot to sweep, clean and wet down the garage and this coat was full of dust, insects and other fun stuff. So it was sanding time once again.

Once that was taken care of and everything was smooth once again, I proceeded with the base coat (the most stressful period of time). Everything was going relatively well, but I quickly realized that I did not buy enough paint. At first I was just going to paint the engine bay, but then I added the wheel wells among other parts and I scrambled to get another quart of paint. The first coat covered quite well. I proceeded with the second coat about an hour later and progress was being made. Quickly I cleaned the gun, and prepped the clear coat. I managed to get two clear coats done and then that's when I started to notice a problem. The coverage was good, but the orange peel was really bad. I also noticed that I was a little thin in the hard to reach places.

So here I am now, next step is to sand off the clear coat and try again with the top coat, this time making sure I've got the coverage figured out. By now, I'm pretty sure I could have paid someone to do the project, but learning is half the fun...right?

The moral of the story I guess is no matter how much you read, no matter how much advice you get, you're still not going to know until you give it a try. I hope to have some time in the next couple of weeks to finish it up. BTW, I've posted some pictures of the project here: http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=39452