I've spent half of my day prepping and laying down a coat of sanding sealer on a recently stripped back IB-7 kit that I'm doing all over again. I'm doing this mainly due to poor finishing technique first time around, so I'm trying to avoid making the same (or worse) mistakes again as it's fast becoming a very expensive kit.

After doing what I thought at the time to be adequate research, and based mostly on all the comments in this post - https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...ead.php?t=9063, I went out and grabbed a small tin of the Feast Watson sanding sealer and carefully applied a single coat to the entire body. Having not decided on colours for the finish, I haven't got anything there yet. However, turns out I may not have been thorough enough in my research as most comments and directions for this sealer implies (well, more specifically states in some cases) that the top coats are expected to be "CLEAR VARNISH, WEATHERPROOF VARNISH or STAIN & VARNISH."

My dilemma is that I'm wanting to go for a solid colour with gloss clear coats. In the past, I've usually gone for the Dulux Duramax due to the colours available, product availability and ease of use. Plus, I usually get a fairly decent result out of rattle cans... most of the time. But, after reading dozens of web sites, forum posts, data sheets, guides etc, I'm no closer to understanding if I can safely put a Duramax primer over the Feast Watson sealer (with or without the recommended proof tint that I haven't bought yet) and then put the Duramax colour/clear coats over that or not.

I'd love to hear from an expert or even someone with similar stories. I'm not committed to the Duramax, btw. In fact, I've been toying with the idea of getting one of those little spray guns (like this - https://www.bunnings.com.au/wagner-w...rayer_p0055604) and trying for a more professional looking finish and this could just be the situation that warrants it.

So, the way I see it at this stage, I'm left with the following options:-

1) Duramax is perfectly compatible and I do the proof tint, primer, colour, gloss coats as I'd initially intended.
2) Find a compatible solid colour finish and use that instead (rattle cans or spray gun option).
3) Sand what I've done right back to bare timber (again) and get a compatible sealer.

Any and all advice is appreciated. I'm a complete novice when it comes to paints. I've never really thought about compatible finishes in the past so I guess I've just got away with dumb luck most of the time - with the exception of the initial job on this particular kit of course.

If I'm looking for a different type of finish to go with the sealer I've got on, would love some examples because there's a whole world of paint data and specs that I know nothing about. If I'm stripping back this sealer to use something else, what would I be looking for? I've read about people using shellac amongst other options. Also, wouldn't sanding be sufficient to remove the existing sealer or should I also give it some sort of chemical treatment to be sure?

If it helps, the kit body is basswood and doesn't seem to need any grain filler as it looks and feels pretty smooth. Apologies for the wordiness, but as you can tell I'm quite clueless here and I just don't want to be doing this kit a third time.