Spray painting issues

[rickbrown74]

Hi all, need some advice about painting. I had a kit car which a painted the nose cone and front arches on and it looked the part when done. Metallic paint with laquer polished to a mirror finish - all done with spray cans from Halfords. The laquer scratched very easy though and there were stone chips appearing after only a handful of journeys. Seemed very soft. I didnt give the laquer very long to dry though before flatting and polishing - would that have been the problem?

Now I have a newly acquired '93 MX-5 in Mariner blue. It looks fine from a few feet back but I'd like to make it a bit more presentable but it isnt worth spending much on. The paint work has a laquer in places, some peeling and some panels already (badly) resprayed (orange peel, pitting etc.) and no laquer on them. soo....

...what do I do to smarten the car up? Can I sand and spray over the current paintwork after keying just to cover the blemishes etc... - Can I use spray cans again or should I invest in a gun and some decent paint supplies (type of paint?). Do I need to seal the current paint work? Do I need to lacquer if its a non-metallic finish? I'm confident enough to take it on, just want to make sure I do it right and not end up with an easily scratched finish again!!

Any help greatly appreciated

[rickbrown74]

Thanks for the tip. Gonna need some blue paint as well so may still opt for a gun and supplies in 2k (plus mask!)

[rickbrown74]

Will check a couple of locals out to see what they can do. Many thanks for the help.