Here's my limited experience: For my first PF redo (Sing Along), I didn't clear before touchups, since it just seemed "wrong", but now I regret it.

I leveled the inserts with pipette & clear, Dolphin glaze for leveling & missing wood, frisket & airbush, then keylines. It was painful to sand & level the dolphin glazed areas and avoid sanding off other paint, same for the inserts. Initial clear would have made the sanding much easier & carefree.

Six months later I'm seeing slight depressions around some inserts (where they meet the PF), even though they were sanded perfectly smooth at the time w/no gaps. It almost as if the clear got liquid again and drained through tiny gaps in the original insert glue. I didn't remove and reglue any inserts, but maybe that's the secret. Vid's guide talks about it, but it seemed like a PITA at the time, and I didn't want to fool with decals on inserts after sanding them flat. Maybe the inserts shrunk some more or something? In any case, it still looks pretty good and plays great. Live & learn.

So I'm going to start restoring my Fast Draw at some point this year (hopefully), and I'm definitely going to clearcoat FIRST (2 thin coats), sand to 400 to give it some tooth for paint, do all the touchups, then 2 more clearcoats. From the reading I've done, initial protective coat is so thin it's invisible later, and it's a great idea to protect the original artwork while you're working on it...like when I spilled a few drops of lacquer thinner on the PF - screwed up the paint bad; I had to to frisket & airbrush a whole area that was fine before - Arrrgh!

-M

One more thing - I had great success drawing circular keylines using Createx black airbrush paint in an old-school ink compass, with the attachment that looks like tweezers. You can regulate the line thickness perfectly, but it takes some dexterity. Use a small piece of plastic & tape to protect PF from the compass needle, and for pop bumpers I made a small wooden insert to support the center.

Oh yeah, the Dead Raccoon Slick Chick - what a mess!

When so much needs repairing maybe it makes sense not to clearcoat. Seems to me different situations call for different approaches.

Maybe it's an extra, precautionary step noobs like me can take to make life easier. Experts get to be pretty good at not screwing things up!

I don't know - even though Clay & Vid (?) don't clearcoat first, does it really mess anything up? If so, maybe I'll not do it.

Would love to see pics, or hear concrete arguments against it.