"accidental" discovery

[MattC]

Just by accident I discovered that by rubbing a coat of Humbrol Matt (Flat) paint down with 1200 Grit paper, then turn the paper over, and rub the paint with the paper side, the paint comes up with a glass smooth gloss finish.

Weird, but possibly useful

[johnsan]

Try also a piece of denim. There is less likelihood of inducing sanding marks.

[Hawkeye's Hobbies]

I do it all the time...wet sand with a polishing stick. You can eliminate the need to gloss clear before applying decals.

Auto body techs use a similar technique to prep cars for painting...they wet sand the primer to prep it for the color coat.

[Irving Babbitt]

Excellent point.

That's a trick that I constantly use with resin car bodies. Blow decanted automotive primer, polish, prime again, polish, prime again... Step two is paint. Paint, polish, paint, polish until you're done. Mind-numbing work, but the proof is in the pudding.

Really, any paint is a gloss paint. You just have to polish it. Model paint is exactly like car paint...but you're trying to make it look sub-scale.

[Isaac]

I've been doing something similar. I buff with a paper towel. Once I tried some micromesh (one of the coarser grits) on the underside of my Meteor (painted with PolyScale/MM acrylics) and it changed the hue of the color. I had to respray it. Not to mention too coarse and you might reveal the plastic which would require a touch up.

I still use future. What I've found it the microset/microsol tends to dissolve the future ever so slightly with the result of helping to blend the carrier film into the underlying future. Take it for what its worth.