So I have done my "painted GTR tail lights" for almost 2 years now, the niteshade is still holding up just fine, except the clear coat has been getting worn down due to weather and etc. I have tried krylon/duplicolor/perfect match clear coat enamels and they were all sub par at best. The most recent clear coat was from a body shop and it looked very nice when I just got it and now of course a bit worn down at this point. I was just wondering what you guys would recommend to be the best spray on clear coat (very durable, very acrylic like, shiny etc)?

 

Try to find some Shimrins house of kolors mini spray cans. I painted a whole bike with their model paint kits and it is really high quality stuff. It was beautiful.

Testors also sells high quality model paints in little cans. Its about $6 for a little tiny a$s can, but its worth it. You can find testors at any hobby shop. The house of kolors spray cans you can only find on the internet anymore, and they're like $14 for a little tiny can.

 

Get some 2K clear in spray cans, its the same 2 part clear shops use . You can find them at a local auto paint supply store or online for about $20-$30 shipped

 

I think the 2k spray might be the better deal in this case, which brand would you recommend? just from a quick search I found spray max brand 2k clear coat, the description looks pretty good.

 

I had great results w/ Dupont Acrylic Clear A-7480 available at auto body supply shops used for cutting in door panels and other paint shop blends. Other ones available online that would be similar are Evercoat Cut-in-Clear & Spraymax 2k cut-in-clear. Any of these three will be significantly better than any off the shelf rattle cans from parts stores. These all go on nice and thick too

 

I got Bernardo Ecenarro 2k clear coat from my local body shop supply store, never heard of them but it was around the same price as the spray max I found on ebay, hopefully the same quality as well.

 

Any 2 part clear should be better than any other regular clear imho

 

Should I try to sand it down as much as possible just before hitting the niteshade before I apply my new clear coat or is it not neccessary? I'm just afriad due to all the different layers there might be swelling or cracking when it's too hot or too cold as they are all different brands of clear coat. Currently probably have 3 layers after the nite shade. Krylon, duplicolor and the body shop one.

 

I would do a wet sand with 1500-2000 first but as far as cracking due to different types of clear IDK.

 

whs^^
All you really need is to just get the old top layer of the clear coat removed, it's sun weathered and dull, as long there's no peeling that needs to be smoothed you should be good to go.

 

thanks for the input! on my way to Can tire for some sand paper haha.