okay, had to jump in and respond to folks who said that this paint technique couldn't result in a very shiny surface. i did a test section on an old motorcycle tank of mine just to see what would happen. i've been delaying painting my track bike with 2k paints that i bought from an auto paint supply store because i was worried about the isocyanate issues. but after doing this test section, i think the whole bike will be painted in rustoleum (i used a different brand but seems to be basically the same thing).

here's the tank itself. you can see that it's very orangepeel-y because i rushed it and probably did too heavy of coats. also, i knew i could sand out the peel.



here are multiple shots of the surface after wetsanding off all the orange peel and sanding down to 1500 grit. it was easy enough to polish out that i would probably skip 2000 gt. this is done with a makita forced rotation random orbital sander/polisher and menzerna intensive polish. it would get even shinier if i used a finer polish to smooth it out even further and put a wax or other sealant on top of it.







obviously the surface prep wasn't the greatest as there are waves all over the place. but hopefully this gives people some hope that a shiny paintjob CAN be achieved with these materials. detailing is a hobby of mine, so the final finishing stage is the part that's easiest for me to do and it ends up with the best results. if you can finish the job well you'll end up with something quite nice it seems. i'll see how it goes on my track bike.