Short thread, but something I've been wondering for awhile. How do you guys get paint into those areas like under the cowl without a ton of feathering/dust? Most guns I have seen are too cumbersome to be stuffed into those hard to reach areas. I've always wondered how they did it at the factory, since this was before manufacturers began dipping cars and using robots.

That's it

Mask off the outside of the car. Use a smaller gun. Shoot the paint in the jambs. Rip everything off. Check of overspray on the outer panels. Reverse mask the car and paint the outer surfaces. Sometimes masking in stages. They don't call it body "work" for nothing.

I probably do not have as much experience but I always dial back the amount of "fan" in the gun output when painting tight spaces. You have to then move the gun faster to prevent runs since the same amount of paint is concentrated in a smaller swath. I do this for inside fender wells, under dash, etc.

The factory didn't paint those places.

They did primer dip the cars, so there is protection, but minimal paint coverage. But a detail gun may be able to get in there.

That makes a lot of sense, and it's similar to how I've done it. I reverse masked a bunch of my car as I painted the interior and trunks over several months before I did the exterior. JP that's a great tip as well.

Mark, thanks for the heads up as well. I didn't know that the areas in question were left in primer from the factory - that's very interesting. I guess my bigger problem is my SATA and my Sharpe are both too big to even get near those areas. So yeah, a detail gun is where it's at. Maybe even just a Harbor Freight special since it's for areas no one will see.