Well judging by the pictures of your plane, you must be very hard on yourself. The plane looks beautiful and the cowl looks just as good. I guess you took a picture of the good side huh. The plane I mentioned above was actually ordered by a friend who does fiberglass repair and paint on boats so he shouldn't have a problem painting a plane. I just don't know the best procedure for prepping the plane. He wants to paint it with a base and clear auto paint. I've heard that sig koverall works well for this but I as well as he are still in the dark about most of it.