For a professional show appearance, I just wire wheel my bolts to bare metal then make all adjustments and tighten bolts. Wipe bolt heads with wax & grease remover. place a piece of wide masking tape across the back of a socket that would be the approx. diameter of the bolt/washer that you want to paint and strike the tape with a hammer around the edge of the socket to make a perfect hole in the tape. Place tape with hole in it over the bolt/washer that you want to paint. Using masking paper or plastic drop cloths to protect surrounding areas from over spray, apply adhesion promoter (i.e. Bulldog)to the bolt heads and let dry for a couple minutes. Now you can paint all your bolts with rattle cans if you like or I just use my airbrush @ 25-30 PSI with either single stage paint or base coat/clear coat. The final product looks FANTASTIC!!

Just my