Ok I did some body work on my bro's red camaro on the fender. I'm still kind of experimenting with the whole painting thing, but I think I have the basics down. I applied the finish, let it dry, then sanded with 2000 grit wet paper. After this was done, I buffed it with 3M rubbing compound. The paint buffed out beautifully. I did the same thing on my White firebird, and it came out to a dull gloss. WTF?! I don't understand why it would work beautifully on my bro's car, and the same procedure would not work on mine. I then picked up some 3M finesse-it compound, and buffed the area. The same dull area came back absolutely gorgeous. Here's my problem, after a couple days, the paint seemed to become dull again, and I don't know what to do about it. Could I have not waited long enough between painting and buffing (24 hours, and I didn't use any type of wax).?

Q, that sounds like it's not dry enough, or bad hardner. 24 hours for an ambient dry is not very long. I usually wait over night after a 150 degree bake for 30 minutes.

White is my personal least favorite color to paint. I have to stick my face in it to see if it's going on right. Black is my favorite.

Base/clear or single stage? On a nice car, show car, or something i'm going to buff complete, i will usually sand down the topcoat the next day and let it sit flat for 2-5 days. Then buff it. It works great. As it dries the scratch that the 2000-2500 has in the paint lifts out as the reducer gasses out. Buffs real easy and looks much better.

White seems to me to be more difficult than other colors I've done. Ok, I used a 2 stage base/clear combination. The paint was done last week, so do you think it would be dry enough to sand and buff again?

After a week of drying I'd think it would be ok. White is a pain in the **** to paint The booth I used at the highschool didn't have the greatest of lighting which made it worse. 2 days out of the paint booth I started wetsanding, really came out great looking.

Ok, sounds like fun yay.......... I'm going to sand it and buff it out again, it's been a week, so I think it's dry enough now. Thanks for the responses, I'll let you know how it turns out.