When will my taillight troubles ever end? Here's my problem:

I painted the amber section of the light candy apple red to match the brake section. After masking the lenses to paint the black gridlines, I discover that the tape messed up the shiny finish on the candy apple red paint. OK, no big deal, I'll just sand it down so the clear coat (that I put on last) will make it appear shiny again. Then, after examining the newly-painted gridlines, I notice that the black paint did a horrible job of sticking. At this point, I just decide to brush paint the lines with some plastic model paint -- it works decent enough. After making sure that everything was clean and dry, I decide that I'm ready to spray the whole thing with clear coat. I do that, and no sooner do I set the can down and the damn clear coat starts to spider-web! These lights seems like a never-ending problem; I've had them off my car for almost three weeks and I'm getting real anxious to drive it (the weather here in PA is starting to get nice). Grr, what did I do wrong?

I'm really thinking of just getting new lights and forgetting about painting the ugly amber section red to avoid any problems, but I'd rather save $80 (used)... I definitely can't/don't wanna spend nearly $400 on a pair of new lights. I do have some blackout covers from when I bought my car, but I want to avoid putting those on if I can... don't want to get pulled over or have them stolen. Help!

 

On my Iroc I paint that dark tint on the taillights and the paint didn't come out that great so I hadto go out and get a new set of Iroc tail lites, next time that I do anything to my tail lites I'm going to buy a cheap junk yard set.
Vance

 

Yeah, I used to have that blackout spray on my taillights too but I decided I wanted to make them a little more "custom" (which is the root of my dilemma)... took forever to sand the black stuff off the lights. I should have left them alone.