Just as in the automotive industry the key to a good finish is in the preparation. A shiny surface will show many flaws, thus to begin I’m going to make certain that the surface of my plastic is as even and smooth as possible. In this example I’m using the bonnet of my Tamiya Lotus Super 7. I'm afraid 2000 will clog up right away. (Also, it would take forever.) I would try #800 or so and see how it goes. It depends on how much paint needs to be removed. You can start with 800, but I have a feeling that's too fine. There is no set rule, so you would have to judge as you sand. Coarse grit (like 600) will get things done faster, but you don't want to leave deep scratches. So starting with finer grit than you think you'd need is a better idea. If it takes long, you can go slightly rougher to do the majority of the sanding done. Whenever you move from any grit of sander or compound it’s vital to get rid of the rougher effort. When sanding you blow off the heavy dust or in this case the heavier compound. I use warm filtered water and an Atlas Ox hair brush. In a minute or so the caked compound and rehydrated lubricant wash away. Part with Atlas Brush in Water

As you can see by the spot on the applicator that it doesn’t take much compound to cover the work area. Close Up of Compound Part and Applicator my objective is to get a nice glossy shine on my car body like I’ve seen people get on YouTube by using it. They tend to sand the body first with 6000/8000 grit sand paperIn this Sunward Hobbies Tutorial, you’ll be seeing how polishing your model with Tamiya Polishing Compound can make a huge difference. Also, I’ll throw in some items which will make your life easier, give an even better finish and possibly save you some money. as I say I was only using the chrome and aqua clear as a test as I had it ready sitting there cured. I’ve painted another 2 test pieces with my main subjects colours. Tamiya TS spray then 3 coats of Tamiya LP gloss clear. I will give it 3/4 days and then try the compounds on those. H.G. Barnes is a former voice-over artist and retired sales and marketing professional. He’s the author of two large volume science fiction adventure romance novels with many more in the works. For well over 40 years he’s been building scale model replicas and now does commission work for clients in Canada and the USA, plus completes projects for companies in Asia and Europe.

I should have asked OP how bad was his "Orange Peel of Doom." Old people tend to make assumptions, and I thought of my own novice mistake from 20 years ago. It has the classic orange peel. (Scout's honor! I'm not this bad anymore, I hope... but everybody starts as a noob.)

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I also tried it on some spoons with the LP paint on tonight, not clear coated and I couldn’t replicate the problem with the Alclad so the Tamiya TS spray is more robust than the Alclad clear! Still I couldn’t get a noticeably different finish between polished and non polished after 3x fine and 1x finish All the products used in this article came from Sunward Hobbies. I didn’t use any special materials and all the techniques can be easily replicated by most people.