Cody... i thought i'd add a few things based on my mistakes that may help you achieve better results.
1/ I could not find 'grain filler' in the UK so tried Primer/Filler. The results are not perfect, so if you can use grain filler going across the grain.
2/ Use sanding sealer so it uses less paint, i sealed mine with oil because i wanted a natural finish originally but... in the end it meant lots of coats of paint.
3/ Plenty of wet & dry between coats will produce better results. earlier on in the painting process i pussyfooted around with this, on the later stages i used 1200 wet between every coat.
I dropped lucky on mine tonight. The aerosol lacquer had'nt produced a smooth finish, supposedly because i had'nt been systematically cleaning the nozzle with thinners. So once again i wet sanded with 1200. The guy next door is a model enthusiast and asked me if i wanted him to try finishing the body off with his airbrush using yacht varnish.
He's given it 5 coats and it looks 1000 times better than my efforts.
So if you can get your hands on an airbrush i'd try it, aerosols are hard work especially at the final stages.
Hope that helps.
