While the Val-Walo taught me some do’s and don’ts when it came to candy coats I wasn’t satisfied and felt I needed to test out a few more things.

First I took 2 spoons that I painted a few weeks ago one with Testors gloss enamel on the left the other a polished Plamo Color lacquer gloss black on the right (the imperfections on the spoons are from dust back when I first sprayed them).

I then painted a coat of Alclad chrome, let them cure, masked them and gave them an equal coat of Mr. Color lacquer clear blue.

Unfortunately I painted this with no primer and Plamo Colors aren’t know for their strength so some of the paint chipped off. But you can still see the difference in shine.

After a few hours I used a less tacky masking tape and slightly masked the blue sides. I then gave the spoons equal coats of Tamiya acrylic clear blue.

You can see that no matter which spoon the acrylic clear is much shinier than the lacquer clear. My only problem is that the acrylic clear took many more coats than the lacquers and keeping that consistent among numerous armor pieces is going to be quite a pain.

Personally I have had bad experiences spraying acrylics in the past and try to avoid using them as much as possible so I am also considering Alclad’s enamels as they might achieve a nice shine as seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMlBTkaq4P4

All I know is I have a bunch more paint to buy.