Paul.
Please don’t “bait” me, you read it right…
I hot coat a vacuum baged laminate which has little if any weave texture due to bagging… I sand the hot coat down initially with 180 grit followed by 320, but I usually jump right to 400 and finish with some 2000 I have loads of… This removes all the scratches you refer to showing up under the clear coat… I finish with 2000 because I have so much of it, and got it for free… It’s surprising how well it smooths things out if used wet…I also glass using 3.2oz cloth which has very little weave to fill anyway, even if done as a hand lay-up…
I don’t do gloss coats, as I use paint, so I guess I’m sanding the hotcoat of K.K. epoxy as smooth as possible ready for spraying…
Maybe you’re thinking : BS , He can’t sand a hot coat down that far as he’ll surely get burn through to the glass fabric… Well all I can think of as a reply is ; You won’t get burn through if the foam under the glass was sanded fair , smooth and evenly before laminating…
Like I said : There is no heavy raised weave to fill as a result of bagging the lam, so the relatively heavy hot/sanding coat applied can be removed quite a bit and should be applied as flat as possible. … The bag leaves the edges of the laps considerably flatter as well, so you don’t have to apply as much filler resin to hide / bridge them…
I don’t like wasting, or sanding off multiple layers of epoxy resin…I guess I’m just dumb, and don’t know " the right way" to do things…
Try sanding the resin base of your next spray job a little finer before painting and you might just be able to live with the shine… Then wet sand out the poly clear with 2000 and then buff out, you might surprise yourself…
BTW : I’m done explaning myself here for a while and would like to take a break from posting… That should make you happy, call it a “self imposed ban”… So please don’t expect any further replies on this or any other topic… I won’t be part of any future “train wrecked” threads…I’m done…
I’ll pop up some pictures of some interesting builds I’m working on, in the near future , for those interested…
My apologies to chainsaw… Try the spray can waterbased outdoor poly by Varathane called : Diamond Wood Finish ,at $8:00 a can, it’s pretty amazing stuff…