okay, i am ready for the paint, i have done all the work myself in my garage and now going to tackle the paint, here is my question, from the spot painting and primer painting i have done, i do not know if i can hold out to do the whole car at one time, i know that i will have a tape mark if i do not paint the car at the seams, can i paint the whole front cap and under hood cover up the rest of the car let dry then cover up the front cap and finish painting the door jambs and rear of the car? and do the same on the clear, i plan on painting the car all the same day with a gallon of paint i have, will the front and rear still match? will you be able to tell the difference?

Regular color or a metallic?

For mine I don't have enough room in my garage to do everything at once, so I'll be doing the door jams, engine bay and trunk seperately, then taping them off and doing the outside of the car. If I tape it off at the places where the body panels meet, ie where the fenders meet the inner fenders, where the rear 1/4 panels wrap around and meet the door jams, etc, I don't think the tape lines would even be visible.

plum crazy purple, Dupont " chrome"i don't have the number with me, this is what the paint guy called it,

Backmasking helps eliminate the abrupt paint edge for those who paint their cars in stages.

my main concern is , if i paint a smaller area at a time, i will do a much better job, than running all over the car at one time, i just went out with my paint gun and it is going to be pretty tricky for me and did a test practice with my paint gun to get around my b-body without touching it in my garage, and the car is so big, i am trying to get smaller areas for me to paint at one time, however, i have almost 3years in the project and do not want the paint to look bad, i do plan on color sanding and buffing and polishing the whole car when i finish painting

the first car i painted i did all at once and have every since.normally i paint everything including the body ,engine compartment, trunk and bottom all at once.
i usually paint the front end then a door and quarter then the other door and quarter, the roof then top of trunk.

so what you are saying, i wld paint the door jams, under the hood and under the trunk lid, let this dry, then spray the base coat on the whole car let dry, then repeat process with the clear?

The simple anser on mettalic as your painting.... spray all the outside of the car at the same time. humidity temp ect will cause color changes so the rest do as you want but all the base on the exterior at the same time.

i thought that was the answer, looks like i need to practice up before i go for the whole job,
thanks for the input

Everything I've read seems to indicate a metallic color should be painted all at once, especially when being done by a novice. From what I've read, you really want to make sure you get consistancy with the distribution and angle of the metallic flakes for the final product to look good.

metallic needs to be painted all at once or it will not match. i had to fix a car i painted after it got scratched on the quarter and i painted it with paint from the same can as i originally painted the car with and it didnt match. i did it 3 times before i got it right and ended up getting out the original gun i used also. humidity changes it. also the amount of reducer you mix the paint with and the air pressure can make the metallic apear different.

another thing is , when i paint metallic i change direction that i apply the paint each coat. one coat may go a cross the panel from left to right and the next from top to bottom . so the 1-2 coats look like an X over each outher then the 3rd i usually either go back to left to right or diagional. i have never had any metallic streaks in any of the cars i painted that way. not sure if everyone does it this way or not.

I agree paint it all at once.

Is there a school or body shop that will let you rent their booth?