Been spraying clear coat wrong for a decade, found out from a dented fender.
Had a 2015 F-150 fender come back with a weird haze after I fixed a dent, and the customer pointed it out. Turns out I was holding the spray gun too far away, about 18 inches, thinking it gave a smoother finish. How do you guys judge your spray distance on metallics?
So you've been basically airbrushing your clear coat from the next county over this whole time? That's a tough way to find out, but at least the fender told you what your buddies were too nice to say. For metallics, I just keep it close enough that the pattern looks wet but doesn't run, maybe a hand's width. How did you not get crazy orange peel from being that far back?
Remember my buddy who sprayed his whole truck bed from like four feet away? Turned out looking like sandpaper, but he called it a "textured finish" and rolled with it.