We have a painter that does good with our tractors. He does plenty of sanding. We give him a couple of tractors a week for him to paint. He spends most effort on the hood, fenders, and wheels as they are the most visible. He uses a HVLP paint sprayer in our paint booth. Some other areas he may sand where needed or even sandblast, but doesn't have to go to bare metal. He gets a tractor in and out of the paint booth rather quickly as we don't mind if there's overspray on a belt, hose, or fan blade. Overall they look excellent. If you spend toooo many meticulous hours preparing and painting them, then you'll end up with a 15 year old tractor with a $10,000 price tag. I've even seen them priced higher that that /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif.
JCooper
Cooper Tractors
Memphis, TN.
1-866-238-0769