Just to argue a small point, I disagree that painting itself is "safe". Even if you whitesuit it, you are still gassing the area with nervegas and your wife, mom, dog and neighbors are inhaling seriously dangerous crap so keep that in mind. Do it when others are not home.
If you do decide to do it:
Degrease the car with a specific body degreaser. Dont touch it with bare fingers or you will have to degrease it again. Dont sand the car without degreasing it or you will rub grease, dirt and wax into the sanded areas.
You dont necessarily need to go to bare metal. If the paint in the area is in good shape and not peeling, feather the edges and prime/paint over it. Cut the surface to 400 or 600 grit. Obviously if there are more than 2 layers of paint, it is advisable to remove them so the paint is not too thick.
Use good bodyfiller. The rage gold stuff is so much better than fiberglass or bondo crap at parts stores. Sands so much easier. You can get it at the auto paint supply shop. Use machine sanding. Better results and blocksanding takes far too long and you wil get tired of it after the first week. I used a palmsander with good results. Dust will be everywhere.
Use high fill primer. This primer comes out real thick and covers scratches and you can even fill in small dents with enough coats. Sand to 400 grit or 600 grit (your paint instructions will say).
Make sure to blast down your car with compressed air the morning of the painting. Gets all the dust off the car. Lay down the plastic as the good man said.
Use sealer if you are painting over old paint. Paint carefully with long even strokes. Didnt work for me, might work for you.
You will have some imperfections no matter what so while you are practicing with your gun, paint a test panel, let it dry and practice wetsanding and buffing it. The results are night and day. Just put water into a windex sprayer and spray it continuously at the target panel while carefully sanding back and forth not circular with a wet sheet of 1000,1500, then 2000 grit. Then use rubbing compound on a wool pad and polishing compound on a foam pad then machine glaze not wax. Dont wax for 3 months or so until the paint has completely cured.
Get a fresh air supply. A chemical mask with one filter removed and a rubber airhose inserted instead (rtv sealed) hooked to a positive pressure air supply system. I used a CPAP breating machine as an air supply (old people use it who cant breathe while sleeping...7psi positive pressure filtered air). Gasses cannot enter your suit if air is being pumped out. Get a disposable whitesuit and wear swimmers goggles (cheap $5 solution to eye protection. I didnt have even a small headache when I finished after 2 1/2 hours). Practice moving around.
For paints supplies , I used the shewin williams autobody supply. Cheap and good materials (those urethane drips are hard as a rock). I had a good relationship with SW when I used to paint houses as a college pro manager (houses are much easier to paint, lemme tell ya!).
Here are the links I used when I was getting ready. Perhaps you shall meet with better sucess than I:
http://www.neilslade.com/Papers/Painting.html (wierd site but good painting info)
http://www.goodspeedmotoring.com/?page=sanding (detailing info with pictures)
http://www.levineautoparts.com/ (they have whitesuits, respirators and hard goods)
Good luck
Pete
thank you now i dont have to type it. you pretty much spot on with that.
