I had a little spare time on my hands today, so I decided to have a look at my paint work. Unfortunately when I cut out the roll-cage last week it rained and the sparks from the angle grinder turned to rust when they landed on the wet body and the dust created by me cutting through all the fibre glass did a similar things, so step one was to wash the car. This was a little tricky as there are no doors or glass on the car, but I got there in the end.
Just to recap, this is the first car I've painted; the car didn't look very shiny after I'd finished and I had this theory that if I sanded it with 2000 grit sandpaper, then went over it with a DA polisher it would be just fine.
Here's a few photos.
The first one is of the roof, which is probably the worst of my painting, but it's to give you an idea of what the section of paint looked like before I sanded it.
If you have a heart condition it might be best to skip the first photo as it's not pretty.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ng72qqqetdvxv39/IMG_2663.JPG?dl=0I know it's a little bumpy and other things.
The first step was to sand it. I started with 2000 grit, but quickly realised it was rougher than I thought, so went with 1500 and later followed it up with 2000.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4dszhww2qyc8cuc/IMG_2661.JPG?dl=0If you look at the bottom section of the sanded area you'll see the low points that I hadn't sanded at that point. They appear as dark spots.
I continued sanding until the top coat (lacquer) was completely flat, and then I set to work with my polish and DA polisher. For those that aren't familiar with how polish works, it's a very fine abrasive, so acts a bit like sand paper, but removes less of the top coat and brings out the shine. Like sand paper, if you polish too much it will remove the top coat and go through to the base coat.
Here's the finished article. The light wasn't great, so not even I don't know how this will look in the day light, but it was very smooth and appeared to be quite shiny.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hfavhyqadcopxz9/IMG_2665.JPG?dl=0The polishing is a relatively easy job to do and compared to the sanding a lot faster. Over the winter months I'll sand the top coat down to make it completely smooth, and when complete I'll go over the entire car with the DA polisher.
Some sections of the car are painted better than others, so I'm hoping the sanding will be easier to do in places.
Thanks Ian, 
