Hello everyone, long-time lurker (all three threads!) but not a first time poster (I'm on other threads on Moparts).

I had a couple of questions which I had been seeking the answers for and which have already been answered:

Prime/Not Prime? It boils down to prep. It seems to me that the more prep you put into it the better off you'll be. Besides, I do have a lot of scale & surface rust which I need to remove, and even a few holes to treat/fill. On top of that, the fella with the Forerunner pretty much brilliantly demonstrated that a consistent bottom coat makes for a better final coat. So I will be priming before I even start the final coat.

Two tone paint job? The original coat on my '72 Satellite is blue/light grey, and a thin chrome moulding piece to separate them. A few of the guys have managed to pull this off and I'm pretty stoked about giving it a shot. Question, tho...when you did yours, you taped off half and rolled the other half. The one guy who had the problem with his truck...I didn't see if he had prepped with primer first; I believe I can avoid the "paint peel" problem with a good, sanded smooth primer coat. I also plan to do the bottom half first, and then work on the top half. PATIENCE is the key here, and I plan to finish the bottom half, let cure for a week, move on to the top half, let cure for a week, repeat, then do the first sanding on both sides.

Rims? I've seen some discussion about doing rims in the same method. My rims are originally chrome, but I plan to have them sandblasted to remove the chrome...but I am undecided on whether to have them re-chromed ($$$) or simply prime and paint with the same light grey I'm going to put on the bottom half. Since they are Magnum 500 rims, I was also going to flat-black the segments. The conversation I read said that Rust/Tremclad of these would not be such a great idea (road damage, etc). Thoughts? Opinions?

Finally, I have a question that I didn't see anyone else bring up in the entire three threads. The main push in these three threads, besides PATIENCE, seems to be PRACTICE. I don't have a junkyard in my backyard to pull parts from, or even a beer fridge which needs a racing stripe...so I was wondering if I could practice on something besides metal surface. You see, I do have a sheet of plywood and I was thinking I could nail down a smooth sheet of wall paneling to it. I figure after priming it, it might be a good surface. Easy enough to remove a botched piece of panel, replace, and start over...whether horizontal or vertical.

Thoughts? Opinions?