Now for the tank....
On Maritimes recommendation, I went back and picked up a tube of Bondo's Glazing Putty to fill in the small pits and such. The putty was super easy to work with and seemed to do its job quite will. Darker red is the putty, white-pink is the original bondo. You can really see all the imperfections it filled in.
Now after one more night of sanding I thought the tank was now smoother than glass.... Sadly I was wrong. Not until the color coat went down did I realize how apparent the bondo work would be under the paint. I thought the paint/primer would fill in small imperfections, in fact it did quite the opposite, it accentuates them.
The paint though! Strictly speaking to the color and finish of the Duplicolor Metal Specks Retro Red, I'm thrilled with it. It was a little tricky to spray, it goes on real thin and is transparent, so I was a little worried until about the 4th coat went down and the color really started to show up. I primed the tank using some leftovers of the Duplicolor Hi-Build Fleet Primer.
For the clear coat used Duplicolor Acrylic Laquer. I'm really happy with this, it was incredibly easy to spray and came out with no eggshell whatsoever. I have no intention of sanding the finish to any extent.
All-in-all, the tank could have been done better on the prep side of things, but it came out good enough that I have no intention of stripping it down again and redoing it anytime soon.
For a first attempt, I'll take it,
Color only, no clearcoat yet.
This one shows the bondo show-through at the bottom of the tank, this was hard to photograph.
Final product with clear coat!