Yes I very much enjoy the paint process myself now, although it's still tricky to lay down the paint 'just right' meaning no runs but also no orange peel - the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle with factors like temperature, humidity, distance from the surface, speed of movement, amount of overlap, and of course how thin the paint is (how much reducer), the speed of the hardener, the inlet psi, how big a fan you dial in, the amount of paint vis-a-vis the amount of air, all go into this magic formula. But professionals have the same difficulties I have noticed and they too can't always get it right and will have to colorsand and polish like I have to on some areas - no big deal, just make sure to put on at least 3 coats, I do 4. The paint is very cheap, at around $230 a gallon + a quart of hardener.
As for dust, I found that my DIY booth, that I built up as per the photos that I posted here and in my other 'I did it again' threads every time with fresh 'walls' from 4 mil plastic sheeting, wall to wall and including the floor, coupled with careful wiping down just before spraying, with grease wax remover but then of course also carefully wiping with a good tack cloth, would result in having maybe 4-10 specs of dust in the entire surface. I bought a de-nibbing tool from Festool to then take care of those (as well as any runs), it's pure carbide and scrapes the nibs right out. Bit of polish afterwards and voila.
For my booth I also used professional grade intake and exhaust filters. Less than $100 for quite a surface of each and I am sure that was also instrumental in keeping dust out of the booth, with my 36 inch mega-fan moving a good amount of air through the booth during spraying to carry away the overspray.
As for the paint, for each of the 4 cars I painted over the past year I bought gallon-kits from TCP Global in San Diego. Single stage urethane to match more closely the original paints on sixties/seventies cars, rather than the base/clear used nowadays on vehicles. If you get one of their many standard colors, they ship very quickly and it comes well-packaged. Low VOC for California, 'regular' for most other states I imagine, not sure if there is a difference in quality/durability etc but I am really happy with the paint quality.
I will certainly build a (more permanent) paintbooth in our place in France as well, looking forward to many more of these complete restorations in my not-too-distant retirement future there. I have found the work involved in rust repairs, welding, grinding and then all the work to prepare for and actually paint old cars oddly satisfying and fun, particularly now that I know I can get it to really top-notch quality. Shops regularly charge $10-15K for paint jobs and I know I can match that for $500 a piece, it's just fun!
