I'll tell you man that's why I love using Minwax polycrylic water based clear (non yellowing) its as forgiving as it gets with acrylic and even enamel paints! Never had a blotch yet and you get about double the mills so you don't have to do 10 coats more like 4. But that totally sucks man.

I use a household paint sprayer it has a much wider tip and its all about the block sanding anyways dude, each coat I sand from 600-2000 grit, it lays down so many mills like 3-4 per 2 passes there's plenty of material to sand off.

When I use lacquer its out of the rattle can automotive grade, but to get the coverage its so tedious like 10 coats and so much sanding it's really not worth it to me. And the polycrylic In my opinion is much more resilient anyways.

The only negative is sometimes you will get air bubbles, but if you put the pf on a 2 degree tilt while spraying they will all slide down under the apron, and they sand out pretty easily because there outties not dimples lol. But the difference is quite noticeable, here's a pic of a pf I did on it's final coat before I sanded them out.

3ccbf8167565954eba30ba2acd25eacf6befa3e9 (resized).jpg

Here's a German reprinted pf I did after 10 coats of lacquer not nearly as impressive, and so much more work. And I was cringing the whole time worrying about the ink they used. Polycrylic works with Testors enamel paints which is an absolute score, cause you don't see those pesky acrylic brush strokes!

12165759_10208490363240736_558100410_n (resized).jpg

Gawd man you lucked out...and who said there couldn't be luck in pinball lol!