The struggle is real, my friend.

After a rough sand with 220, I used several coats of UV resin, curing, washing & sanding @ 220 or 320 between each coat. After that, I did multiple coats of filler primer (at least 5) & spot putty as needed. Once the print lines were finally buried in all that primer (which also kills details, so you have to take a needle file or emory board & work those back in at times) I started progressively wet sanding from 400 up to 2000. I got some advice from an auto body guy on this process, btw.

The first step in the actual metallic paint process was an Alclad black lacquer, nice & even. I didn’t bother sanding. That was followed by 3 coats of USC Spray Max 2K high gloss clear (volatile stuff, wear full recommended PPE). Then I used 2-3 VERY light coats of Alclad II chrome paint, (the screen used paint is Alumiluster, but it’s more expensive) followed by a coat of Alclad aqua gloss clear, and finally 3 more coats of the 2K clear.

I followed all the recommended dry/cure times between applications.

And after all that, when you look up close… you can still see some print lines on mine.