Man, you guys are scaring me with these prices! I've gotta do a full-blown p/j on my Willys CJ5 one of these days, I'll be having it blasted to bare metal and done up right. I sure as hell wasn't thinking about $5000! Been a helluva long time since I painted anything though, just Harleys back in the early 80's.
I learned back in 1975 I could not afford to pay someone to do it right. I had a friend that owned a body shop. I spent many hours just helping out for free to learn how to do it right and by myself.