Going to D.I.Y. paint job on a scratched rusted fender lol....

Best of luck. Suggest you read up on prepping, feathering, painting, and finishing. Best to practice on a piece of metal. If your metal is not damaged, the prep work should be simple sanding to a smooth finish. Build up primer might be needed to help you feather it into the good paint. You also need a clean space free of dust, wind, and is low in humidity to paint in. Slow and methodical is key.

Yep, proper prep work is really the key. If you flub that step, it won't matter how good you are or the quality of your paint. It will soon fail. I need to do something similar for my Brother's Jeep. He delivers the County paper on East Texas backroads. His Jeep has some big rusting areas where tree limbs have gouged out his paint. I have no garage to prep/paint and the weather here has been very windy and high pollen. Let us know if you need any more help. We have alot of resources at our disposal.

All is not lost. You need to work at the feathering between the original and the new paint. Then you can give it a good (light pressure) 1000 grit wet sanding. Go into the clear of the original area just a little bit. Now spray you clear to overlap slightly. You can then feather the clear much easier and do an over all finish wet sand of 2000 grit. Once it looks smooth, you will need to compound buff to cut the clear and polish it up to make it pop. There is an art to this so it takes alot of practice to get it right.

You have been Prayed for. Looks like you are going to have alot of overspray. That will have to be carefully removed to prevent damage to the clear coat on the goo part of the paint. You will need a good buffer and different wheels/compounds to snap that back. Just be slow and methodical.

That is actually coming out fairly nice for the uninitiated. You just might be a the point of a 3-step compound buffing over the clear coat to bring out the shine and blend it with the OEM. Great work.

Holy Carpe Diem Batman! That is one butt load of rock dings. Do you get stuck driving behind large commercial trucks like sand/gravel haulers? Man, I so hate to get behind one of those guys. Most truck drivers don't seem to care too much if little bits and pieces of their load just happens to fall off en route. For that reason, we have a Member that actually had parts of his front end painted over Rhino Liner. I am looking into a clear stone guard that is uber expensive.

50 hours a week. You should be just making enough overtime to make the higher tax bracket worth it. Try being in the Military. You don't get days off. You get Liberty which can be called off at anytime.:hang: Still, flying over 80 hours in a week on a C-130T can be alot of fun though you feel haggard by the time you are done.

Ghetto are not, you made a valid attempt to resolve a problem by yourself knowing full well and accepted the outcome of it. You also solicited advice, did research, and attempted to use the proper tools/product. Nothing like my Brother and his dufas bud, back in the late 80's, that decided to paint his car with 15 cans of white Krylon general purpose paint. Now, that is full on ghetto.