[Raine]

I've been planning to repaint my car this year but as the days go by I don't know how long I'm going to stay in Europe when I leave this June. Therefore I'm a little apprehensive to spend $2k on paint that I might need when travelling... so what I want to do is fix the major chips and cracks in the paint myself. Even if I do get the car repainted, it would be a complete strip and refinish, so if I fuk up horribly, it's not so bad... however I don't want to fuk up horribly, I wanna do a decent job. Getting colour matched paint and whatnot isn't hard, and I don't need much for what I wanna do, my question is,

When the paint is chipped right down to the metal, do I need to build up the surface before I paint with a metal filler/bondo or something, or just fill it with a couple coats of paint? Either way I'm likely to get an uneven surface, so how can I smooth out the rough spot without scratching up the paint around? Is there a special grade of sandpaper, like wet 1000 - 1200 or something, that will smooth the new stuff without damaging the surrounding clear coat?

Also have a s**t load of dings and dents. Anyone know of/have a cheap/rentable tool that can be used to safely pull dings out? There are at least 4 - 5 on my car that SHOULD be pullable... tips? Tricks? Advice? Let me know :)