[hgs_notes]

This is based entirely on my experience the past couple years with 1st, the paint job done on my C-10 and 2nd, my first paint job I did on my jimmy.

Get all your body work done before you spray any paint.

When my truck was painted I did all the bodywork before sending it to the body shop to get sprayed. I knew I wasn't "ready" to spray it myself yet. I was making too many mistakes. Once I had the sheetmetal where I was comfortable with it I sprayed a final coat of primer and that was it. I let the body shop do the final sanding so they knew what they were spraying over. Everything turned out great. I was happy. The body shop was happy.

Fast forward to the Jimmy. Knowing I was going to spray it all myself I did basically how you described it above. I had most of the body work done, but as I finished up the sanding on the insides of panels I sprayed them with paint, then mounted them up. Because of the paint choice I had with lots of flake and translucency I knew the outside would all have to be shot at once. But the biggest hassle really was having to have all the previously painted sheetmetal masked off whenever I needed more primer sprayed. Total PITA.

Looking back I wished I had just got all the primer and sanding done before I had sprayed any of the paint, like I had done with my C-10.