My First Resto-Mod (Guidance Appreciated)
If nothing else, get some good epoxy primer (black maybe) to get you started after you strip the paint. you can use filler right over the top of it, and seal it up with the same primer when you are done doing bodywork.
I just orders epoxy and hi fill (and clear coat) from Southern Polyurethanes:
http://www.southernpolyurethanes.com/
Ditto on the SPI Epoxy. It's great stuff. I used it after my Dart came back from media blast. I'm a total amateur and it sprayed beautifully out of my $10 harbor freight gun.
Body filler is porous and can absorb water if you have a scratch in your top coat or a pin hole in your metal work. Having epoxy under the filler protects the metal from that moisture. It also allows you to get the bare metal protected right away and then apply the filler later as time permits. Some car manufactures including Toyota require Epoxy Primer under filler to maintain their warranty protection for rust through.
It's best if you can apply your filler within the recoat window of the epoxy which is 7 days. But if you don't get it done that fast, it's OK to rough it up with some 80 grit.
I chose to do as much metal work as I could before media blast, so I could go straight to epoxy and then filler. But if you're blasting the car at home you will have more flexibility. You could do the car in sections so each section of metal gets protected right after it gets blasted. You could also blast the areas were you suspect rust first, get them repaired, and blast them again if they flash rust.
I also plan to apply epoxy primer over my filler. This will re-coat the bare metal areas around the filler and it will also provide a layer of contrasting color so I know when to stop block sanding the primer surfacer. I'm using Red Oxide epoxy primer and gray primer surfacer.
I don't have much input on the later stages since I haven't gotten that far with my project. I did talk to SPI about their primer surfacers. They have a 2K Regular Build Primer and a 2K High Build Primer. They say the Regular Build primer is equivalent to other company's High Build and that their High Build is even thicker and generally not needed. Based on their advice I bought the Regular Build, but have not tried it yet.
A local body shop owner turned me on to SPI because of his great experience with their clear coats which are much cheaper than other brands. But sounds like that won't apply for what you're doing.
Anyways, Best of Luck.
