Painted spoiler...

[PlenumBiscuit]

Base coat looks fine

Clear coat looked pretty but was rough so i scuffed it back with 2000grit wet sand....felt good.

Gave it a little cut n polish and it now looking half crappy

What to do now...use a different polish that doesn't cut?

 

[someguy360]

What did you use to paint it?

Spray gun, rattle cans, acrylic, 2k?

All of that will determine what you need to get it looking right, differnet polishes for different paint types etc.

I'm guessing if the clear looked pretty **** it's acrylic as that won't look smooth or glossy until it's wet sanded and compounded.

With acrylic clear you need to wet sand with 1200, then 1500, then 2500. 2000 won't be enough to properly cut it straight off the bat. Then hit it with a compound suitable for acrylic such as mr buff that has heavy abrasive properties, then a finishing polish that will remove sanding/polishing scratches (i like 3d extra cut).

Hopefully you put enough coats of clear on as you remove a fair bit of material to get Acrylic looking right (I generally do 5 coats).

An acrylic paint job will generally need around 3-4 hours of work per panel after painting to get it perfect, theres a lot of steps.

 

[PlenumBiscuit]

Rattle can paint made by autobarn

Clearcoat supercheap stuff acrylic can, not the sca brand the next one up green and yellow rattle can...

Ok thanks my polish is sca cut n polish paste from 5 years ago haha

Also im polishing by hand, i guess i could put a buffer in my drill but i dont have any orbital tools...oh wait i got a dremel...

Im kinda feeling like the clearcoat didn't come out the can too well...i put 4 coats on it and still have a third of the rattle can left

 

[EYY]

Rattle can paint made by autobarn

Clearcoat supercheap stuff acrylic can, not the sca brand the next one up green and yellow rattle can...

Ok thanks my polish is sca cut n polish paste from 5 years ago haha

Also im polishing by hand, i guess i could put a buffer in my drill but i dont have any orbital tools...oh wait i got a dremel...

Im kinda feeling like the clearcoat didn't come out the can too well...i put 4 coats on it and still have a third of the rattle can left

Post a few pics. Trying to cut 2000 scratches by hand with only a polish will only give poor results. Try a cutting compound, like Meguiars ultimate compound.

Sounds like you’re using septone clear - nothing wrong with that providing you gave nice even coverage with enough thickness for sanding/polishing.

How long did you wait before wetsanding? Typically you’d want a good month or so of reasonable weather before wetsanding and compounding/polishing to allow the solvents to evaporate.

As for paper grit, I do typically go straight to 2000 for acrylic since it flattens so easily. If there’s lots of peel, I’ll go 1500 then 2000. It’s all personal preference - you’ll even see people recommending you start to colour sand at 600-800, which I couldn’t imagine doing!

For 2k I’ve started at 1000 and worked up to 2000 before - that’s a fair bit of work!