@JayMatt I’m not a professional painter by no means but in high school I worked for one of the local FBO’s and stripped several aircraft while there. Over the years I have painted several custom motorcycles and I’ll throw in my $0.02, pick a system (PPG, DuPont, etc) and use their entire system, don’t mix brands unless your 100% sure they are compatible. The biggest consumer of time is the prep… any flaw only grows when painted, and should an insect decide to land on your wet paint, LEAVE IT until the paint has cured then pick it’s carcass out (trying to remove it from wet paint makes a big mess). Don’t skimp on supplies, use quality tape, masking paper, tack cloths etc… Remove as much as you can, control surfaces, fairings, inspection panels, etc…. Mask off ALL the openings created from the step above. Practice on the inspection panels as they are small and easy to start over if needed, working your way up to bigger parts..ie wings and fuselage should be last. Serval light tack coats (hardly any coverage) helps with sags and runs followed by a wet coat. Follow the recommendations for overlapping when spraying (overlapping prevents “tiger stripes”) HVLP (high volume low pressure) spray guns rock, spend the money on a good one, primers and paints should use a different needle/nozzle, a removable cup makes it nice on larger areas, have a buddy mix a new cup while your spraying, swap it out a keep painting. Use a regulator/water separator at the compressor and a small disposable separator at the gun (replace daily), drain your compressor daily before spraying. A good respirator with replaceable filters is a MUST, change those filters daily as well. Orange peel and dry spots will be your biggest issues, these are gun settings an technique for the most part, as the area being painted gets larger settings/technique changes. Edges and sharp corners tend to wick the paint away, leaving a thin coat, this can be avoided some with multiple tack coats on the edges before the wet coat. It’s been 12yrs since I’ve painted anything of value, the tread above mentioned 2 grand for tools & supplies, my guess is if you have to buy everything it would be closer to 6k. The better the prep work the better the outcome, it’s a fine line between not enough paint (dry spots) and too much paint (runs/sags), get it just right and it will flow nice and smooth (little to no orange peel) so practice, practice, practice and take pics, we like pics. So have fun and keep us posted