So now comes the fun part... smoothing it in. My only real suggestion here is to go slow and use the biggest sanding blocks you can find. I've screwed myself by trying to force stuff and it only results in low spots. If you sand too far, add more bondo and keep moving. I probably have 30 applications of bondo on here... (In my defense I'm a noob at body work and it was crazy hot in Cali so I usually only had about 2.5 minutes of working time for each application).
The sharpest curvature is rear fenders at the door seam. I found that using the backside of my rubber block gave a nice consistent radius that was about right.
This is pretty much where I spend my evenings for about three solid weeks (yeah, I'm slow). Note the long sanding block.
This was where I screwed up and should have had the lower edge pulled 1/4" forward. So instead I got to cut off the edge closest to the tire and reshape the whole lower portion. It's a lot of layers of bondo but its maxes out at about 3/16" thick. The trim detail took quite a while to get looking right.
Setting up the "paint booth" with everything blended in
It's a family affair. (Wife and Dad)
Mom with the kid. My EZ up wasn't big enough so I placed it diagonally to shield as much of the car against wind as I could.
Water trap: plastic hose for better thermal conductivity, copper would be better but this still worked really well.
Washed the car, then a denatured wipe down, then a high build primer. Note there's two schools of thought here. Some folks prefer gray or dull primers so you know you have enough base coat. I choose white as insurance just in case my basecoat turned out thin.
Glazing putty / spot filler
Sppt filler sanded out. You can follow with more primer if you still have low areas (too low and it's back to bondo).
Close up of the holes and scratches this step fills. It's easy to tell where you went after the fiberglass more aggressively.
Shooting basecoat
Clear
Same basic process went down for the front fenders and lip except these were all painted off board.
Problem with the new shiny bits is that suddenly my doors looked terrible. I couldn't help myself so I pulled all the hardware and painted those too. Door handle hardware you get to one bolt with the window up and one bolt with the window down. I probably took out around 20 door dings between both sides
Sanded out the rough stuff at the bottom of the door.
Strangely my doors don't match. The pass side was hard texture at the base while driver's side had rubberized stuff that had to be scrapped off. Furthermore the trim on passenger's used solely double stick tape, while driver's side had holes for clips I had to fill (epoxied patch panels on the back and then filled with bondo).
And here's the Ronin crew at SevenStock...
