First step was to thoroughly clean and degrease the chassis with acetone, followed by a soap and water wash/rinse. Then I built an elaborate "paint booth" out of sawhorses, a clay pot and a box lid.

Here is the chassis after painting with Rust-Oleum Clean Metal Primer: White Clean Primer #7780. The result is a nice flat white finish. I let that dry for 48 hours, then lightly sanded the finish to prepare for the gloss coat.

BEFORE: The chassis was a brilliant, shining beauty. However, this build is destined for a gloss white finish. I'll miss that mirrored surface! Don't cry for the lost shiny chassis; I'll build a polished version in the future.

AFTER: After a light sanding of the primered chassis, I finished it off with Rust-Oleum High Performance Enamel: Gloss White #7592. Got a little dark and cloudy, so this photo is a bit dank. You'll have to take my word for it that the gloss white finish looks creamy. It will look even better after waxing and buffing.

ONE LITTLE MISTAKE = LOTS OF EXTRA WORK!

I'm sure the Rust-Oleum folks would cringe, but I decided to accelerate the drying process a bit by placing the chassis on a heating pad. This works GREAT...UNLESS...you place the paint in direct contact with the heater. With the pad under the chassis, all was right with the world. However, when I turned the piece upside down, the excess heat forced out thousands of tiny bubbles, marking the paint with an interesting heater wire pattern. I didn't have the heart to show the BEFORE photo, but it wasn't pretty.

Thankfully rubbing compound, followed by polishing compound and a good wax and buff brought out a nice shine. As always, having the right tool made things much easier. I used a little power hand sander on top of cheap buffing pads to restore the finish. The above photo is a little tickler for the next build page: Wiring the Chassis.