b-rad i had my painter check it out, for the next step ....i think wet sand w/ 800 to clean up the dirts and then scotch bright with paint soap wash off and spray the clear and then the paint will be smoother....and faster!!!
Let me jump in with my lack of knowledge and say that thing looks fantastic. IF, Brad had all the time in the world it would have been great to go with the epoxy, then some 2K primer then the base coat and then the clear but let's be honest guys, he's doing fantastic with a VERY short timeline.
The epoxy does a nice job of sealing the boat and get's it in one color. That epoxy has a pretty nice gloss too. The key is when he blows on the clear. It is gonna be blinging for shine. Most base coats that I looked into had a very flat look. It was the clear that gave them the shine.
Chromey, I agree with the idea of the 800. If it loads up the paper, you might try 600 instead.
Also, you might want to tell your sprayer that when I sprayed the Universal Clear, I put on a medium wet coat and followed that up with 2 more coats of it WET. It was so wet that I was actually watching the ripples in the wet clear as I was spraying. Turn off the booth fans as soon as the overspray is gone from spraying the last coat and have a couple cold ones. The orange peel flows out this way really well.
Brad, run your race and then sometime when you're chilling with nothing to do, you can wetsand it with some 1500 and 2000 grit and get somebody to buff it and it'll look even better.
If you want to do some graphics sometime in the future, sand the clear, shoot your graphics and pull your tape ASAP while the graphic paint is still a little wet so it'll flow. Follow that up with some more clear and you'll be fine.
Regardless, I think you're doing great given the challenges you're under and once again hats off to Chromey...................john
