One question......so on Thursday when I was planning the re-do of my hatch decided that high-gloss finish on box and false floor would look really nice.

Stripped off the carpet on sub box and sanded entire box w/ orbital sander for an hour or so. Bought acrylic latex paint w/ gloss finish (interior/exterior gloss black) and acrylic clear-coat (Minwax Polycrylic clear gloss). I really don't know why I waited until after I had the first coat of paint on but decided to look up on i-net how to get a piano-like finish.

Soon learned that I should have lacquered the box prior to painting. To be honest I'm not totally dead-set on getting it to look like this......if I can learn how to glass, I want to finish out my entire hatch in carbon-fiber eventually but I still think it'd be fun to learn how to get a really nice finish.

So....question. Can I simply skip the lacquer step and just go through a series of sand, paint, sand, paint sessions and then apply the clear coat along with more sanding and painting?

 

If you want it to look like a piano then you need to sand, lacquer, primer, paint, paint, pain, clear, clear, then sand. More sanding in between steps may need to be done for the perfect finish.