I painted real cars for a living when I was in college. I have read all of the posts regarding painting and polishing. After looking at some of the finished models in the gallery I see some steps people may be missing to get the "show car" look. These steps are very broad, feel free to contect me for detailed information regarding your situation. I am happy to help.
1. Preparation of the work area and body are 90% of the job.
If you properly wash, sand, and dry the body, 90% of your problems would be gone. If your work area is too dusty, dirty, sunny, hot, cold, windy, or not properly ventilated, you will get a bad paint job. Remember, the oil from your fingers can prevent the paint from sticking properly to the body. (Ventilation also keeps the overspray fromlanding on the body and making the paint look too dry or orange peely as well as helps your lungs!)
2. Clean your spray gun to like new condition after EVERY use.
If your gun burps during the last coat of clear and some old crusty paint lands on the hood of your new model, its over!
3. Proper mixing of the solvent to the paint is very important for a glass like shine.
The solvent or reducer allows the paint to "flow" over the body and flatten out so less sanding and polishing is necessary. If you put too little solvent/reducer in with the paint the paint with cure and look like sand or the peel of an orange. If you put too little, the paint will not dry properly or not cover the body with color.
4. Sanding and polishing should take you days.
After a real car is baked in a spray booth, it is sanded and polished. All dust and non-matching orange peel is sanded to match the rest of the car. Then it is polished with varying compounds and polishes using an electric polisher. I personally would start with 2000 grit wet paper and move through each sequential grit until I reached 12000. Then I would start polishing, and polishing. I would seal it with wax so the water and dust comes off easily while cleaning. I highly reccommend Zymol wax. You can use this to remove the polish from the body lines while lightly polishing and sealing the finish. Use a compressed air can to blow the dust off the body while polishing, even the dried polish dust can scratch a new finish.
Good luck. Ill try to write a step by step of how a real car body is prepared and painted for a show. It isnt much different than what you guys are doing for your models.
Pugdog13