paint smoothing
 

does anyone know of any good methods of smoothing a paintjob to get rid of tiny air bubbles and other uneven parts. I just applied my 2nd coat of enamel paint to my ff supra body(I hate orange) and aside from just rubbing it for a while with a cloth after it dries, I'm not sure what else I could do to make it look nicer... wish I had an airbrush when I started this.

-Zad

What type of paint did u use?
That will determine the wait time till u can fix the problems.
Best to wait 48 hrs for paint to cure.
You will need 400 to 1000 grit wet sandpaper, rip off a small piece of sandpaper and very lightly sand the car under running water (just a little running water) if the bubbles go all the way to the base coat u will have to repaint if not u can clear coat but either way clean with denatured alcohol and let dry several hours and then clear coat or paint.
Also if u put the can in hot water and let the paint get warm then shake it for several minutes more the better your paint will be smoother also thin coats wont produce bubbles but will produce orange peel, thick coats will produce bubbles or fish eyes, what you want is in the middle just enough paint to cause it to flow together, hard to do on small cars. Also always clean with a degreaser before painting (denatured Alcohol) and if u have the paper 400 to 1000 grit lightly scuff the paint before painting also using a primer of the same brand of finish coat helps a lot.

Anything can be fixed, paint can be stripped, and airbrushes only spray better because the paint is filtered before spraying

Oh one more thing make sure u also use a new spray tip, u can buy extras.

http://home.attbi.com/~wizard461/car.jpg

to paint this i used fingernail polish remover and a fine grit file. then i used pistacio green krylon semigloss. i let that dry for about 20mins. then i used blue krylon(with a nice detail cap that you can buy at most auto shops) getting a gradient to be smooth takes some practice but its easy.then for protection i used shimano bike paint protectant. it is foam i covered the body in the foam and let it sit for a while. after the foam was gone and it dried i had a nice smooth shiny finish. all in all it was about 90 minutes worth of work including waiting.

i havnt finished detailing yet