Originally Posted by: William MGI am finding that achieving a great looking finish isn't easy.

That's "orange peel" effect in the first photo William MG. You'll have to cut it back to smooth (or strip it back) and respray before you apply the finish colour coat or clear sealing/protective coat - unless that effect is what you're wanting?

[br]Always spray any wood with a matt wood undercoat first. Wood undercoats are usually coloured neutral mid grey for darker finish colours, or white for lighter. Depends on the finished shade you want to effect as well. That will seal the wood pores and show up any unseen grooves, marks, dents etc that any initial fill and sanding hasn't rendered uniform. It also provides a bonding layer and consistent opaque shade layer for the following colour coats.

Are you using spray cans or an airbrush/spray gun with compressor?

What type of paint are you using? Acrylic, enamel, polyurethane or two pack?

Amazingly, a pretty decent job can be achieved using [u]quality[/u] pressure pack cans these days. I like using polyurethanes if using pressure packs, but poly is [u]very[/u] unforgiving to spray, and quality poly is HAF to sand back if it goes pear shaped. e.g. orange peel.

[br]Done 'quite a lot' of spray painting in my time. Made the mistakes. Learnt the lessons. Everything from plastic display & control-line & R/C flying models, through furniture, doors rooms. Even spray painted two motorbikes I restored from tired and worn to as new once....they turned out great. See the Desmo in the image below. Bolstered by that success, some years later I tried spraying a (whole) car. Haha => major fail....also smart enough to concede I wasn't up to that job. Sent it to the pros to do it in a spray booth. Lubbly jubbly, but $$ouch$$!

Best of luck.