Quoted from Lonzo:Just a small update. I sprayed what I hoped would be the last coat of clear yesterday. I wet sanded today and after using 600 to try and level everything I took a magnifying glass and went over all the edges of the big fire decal. I saw one little micro area that it looks like I got too and took a sliver of black off (easy fix) but that leaves no room for the rest of the sanding to make the playfield ready to buff to a mirror shine. That means one more coat of clear and it should be finished.
I sanded the flame a little more than I normally would have but I was really trying to get everything level. The good news is that I am 100% confident that the next coat is it and it will be a level playfield and ready to assemble. The small flame decal that had to be replaced also turned out great and now that area is level and you cant tell that it was replaced.
I should get the final coat on next Wednesday when I get back from my trip. I am really looking forward to putting this thing together. I have some ideas that I am wanting to try to fix the building plastics that are broken that I think will look real nice and professional.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
600 is too coarse to use for wetsanding. Even 800 is pushing it and you'd only use that if you needed to remove a lot of material.
You will lose 1-3 coats of clear getting a playfield flat after clearing depending on how bad it was to start with. So make sure you put down enough coats to account for this. Otherwise you will just break through again.
Start with 1000 grit, then go to 1500 and finally 2000. It is very time consuming to do it right. If you don't you'll still have sanding scratches show up during buffing.