Paint Your Car at Home

The skim coats of Bondo are what take a serious amount of time. Just the hood, front fenders, roof, quarters, and the tailgate involved 10 days of part-time work--roughly 30 hours.	Since we wanted a perfect El Camino bed that will never see anything rougher than a lamb's wool blanket, the dent pounding and plastic filler work also extended to those horizontal and vertical surfaces.
After removing previous-owner primer, we discovered Bondo and some light surface rust on the top, which we quickly removed with a dual-action (DA) sander. Smoothing slight wrinkles by using a small amount of Bondo is exactly how plastic filler is supposed to be used.	Blocking the roof involves the same work. Remember to sand in 45-degree angles to create a smooth, even finish. Ideal plastic filler thickness should be only a few hundredths of an inch thick.
Just before the primer goes on, it's always a good idea to hit all the panels with wax and grease remover to prevent fish eyes and other imperfections.	Mere filler primer does not seal against the elements, so we elected to first spray the El Camino with DuPont Nason Ful-Poxy primer, which is a combination of sealer and primer.
The front fenders were left off the car to allow painting everything with more control and to get the primer-sealer around all the fender edges.

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