My bumper was from a junk yard, originally green, painted black a while ago by the previous owner. The paint was fading big time and starting to peel/crack. I decided to redo the paint with some duplicolor spray paint (this stuff). I sanded it down to the original green and then some, then primed, sanded, primed, put on 3 coats of black, about 2-3 coats of clear and it came out looking pretty dull. With the size and uneven shape of the bumper it was really hard to get a nice wet (not too thick) coat of clear on, which really shows. Is there anything I can do to make it a bit shinier?

 

You could try wetsanding with trizact 3000 and then buff it and see how that looks. If it's still not good just scuff it down and respray clear.

 

As far as buffing goes, what's the easiest/cheapest way to do it? I'm trying to do this on a budget, hence the spray paint.

 

it should look hazy because of the way you did it. And there might be orange peel and other junk that could be wrong with it , so sand with 1500+ until its a very even fog, followed by rubbing compound+polish. I use a machine so it works real quick, but if u do it by hand you might have a longggggggggg time to rub/polish it. On a porter cable it takes me 30 minutes to buff 1/4 of the the rear quarter panel.. so i think u might want to look around to borrow a friends machine.