refinish - hard to tell if base is slightly textured or if it's the clear

[builthatch]

i didn't do the work. the shop that did it has done a lot of work for me and it has come out fine, even elsewhere on this job. it looks awesome except under artificial indoor light. it feels super slick. if i look very close, it looks like the surface is rough. not orange peel rough, but almost like super super ultra fine aluminum foil that has been crumpled and flattened. sort-of like when there are 1500 grit scratches in primer, which was painted over with base and clear, but not exactly. very fine stuff here. it scatters perfect cut-off lines such as that from the overhead lights and is quite annoying as an enthusiast.

how do i tell if it's the base that is rough and the clear is actually leveled, or if it's the clear that needs to be leveled some? i was thinking of wet sanding it with some 2k grit and then buffing that out to see if it changes, but i'm not that confident in the thickness of the clear on this thing. i know repaints typically have more clear than modern car bean counter influenced factory paint jobs, but i'm sayin'. since this is so fine, would it be better to just hit it with a yellow pad or wool and some optimum compound then refine to see if it changes? i'd imagine it's not like polishing orange peel, where you end up with shinier orange peel, lol.

thoughts?

[builthatch]

well, hehe, i answered my own question. i took a 2 x 2 section and wetsanded at 2000 grit...very minimally. just enough so every part of it was scuffed.

i then went the electric DA route, believe it or not, for everything after that.

i did a yellow 4" pad with optimum compound until all of the 2000 grit marks and rids were gone. i could tell immediately that the mystery texture was gone.

then an orange 4" pad with the same stuff, a few passes to refine just a bit further and get the remainder of the smoothed sanding scratches (you know, when they are rounded quite a bit - this got them out).

i then did another orange 4" pad but with optimum polish, the old version. i did quite a few passes with this combination, really broke things down.

finally i did a gray 4" with OP, again, tons of passes, started at about 4 with moderate pressue and went up to 6 with minimal pressure.

i did IPA wipes between each step and topped it with one coat of opti-seal.

i tried to take pictures but without special positioning with halogens in the dark garage my camera would def not pick anything up, at least the stuff i'm talking about - it was pretty minute but would make reflections shitty, almost like a super super fine mist was on the clear. my take on this whole thing is they did the hood last, in terms of sand and buff, and probably didn't finesse past the initial buff on the hood like they did elsewhere on the car. oh well, no big deal because i have the solution. the only thing now is to do the rest of the hood. i'll probably do what i did tonight, meaning do a section at a time when i have time since the car doesn't come out of the garage. i only need to do about 4 more sections like i just did to get the results i want.