Hey Joey,

great advice from moose. If you are going to use rattle cans, first make sure your colour and clear coats are compatible. Sand as much as you can to begin with. Personally for solid colour I sand 120, 180, 240, 360, 400. Then fill the grain with Timbermate and sand back with 400. You can do this more than once if need be to give a nice smooth surface. Now a couple of primer coats. Wet sand the primer back with 600 to remove a bit of the Orange peel. Now color coats. You need just enough for coverage. Don't overdo the coats! Now clear coats. You will need to build up enough to allow for wet sanding later on. After you have a few coats on, level the surface by wet sanding with 600 grit. Be careful not to sand through. Now a couple more clear coats and allow it to hang and fully cure. Wet sand with 1500 and 2000 grit. The finish should be nice and matte at this stage. For gloss finish go on with Meguiars compounds.

hope this helps.

cheers,
Gavin.