(6/29/2004) - The time has come to practice painting, so that I will hopefully get good results on my Baja parts that need to be painted.  I was actually hoping to paint the whole car, but I'm running out of time.

I converted my mom's garage into a paint-booth! (boy she was excited! haha).  I put up plastic EVERYWHERE - to keep the dust down.  Then I put up a few more fluorescent lights (I have a total of 9).  For air, I installed a standard household heater filter on one side, and a shop-vac on the other side.  Technically its a "cross-draft" which isn't so good (down-draft is better), but it should work fine.

I'm using a Campbell Hausfield compressor and HVLP gun from harbor freight.

I decided to practice on the rear Baja fenders, since I'm not planning on using them.  I bought a can of decent quality automotive primer, color ("brilliant orange"), and clear.

Here they are primed:

And painted:

They didn't come out too bad actually.  A little rough (orange peel).  After a wet-sand with 2000 grit, and a good compounding/polish with 3M perfect-it they looked REALLY good.  Not bad for my first time with a spray gun.

With time running out, it looks like I will just paint the new fiberglass Baja parts.  To make the car 'somewhat' match, I will probably try to polish the old paint on the rest of the body a little.