Originally Posted by alynmurray

Metallics are almost impossible to color match especially silver. The reason is, as the car is being painted quite a few things come into play for that particular "spraying session" They will all be of different values as opposed to when the car was originally painted. Air pressure at the gun, amount of fluid being sprayed, how far you are from the car, how hot is it outside, what is humidity, What are the "mix ratios", are you keeping the metallic in suspension in the gun continuously, how fast are you spraying, etc all these things have a huge effect on how the metallic flakes in the paint, "lay down" when the paint starts to dry (right away!).
The only way to get a uniform color reflection is to spray all of the car front to back in one pass, on final application/coat. The metallic flakes in the paint all lay down in pretty much the same way.
When I last painted my Jag I painted all the creases, opening edges, first just to make sure there were no light spots I may miss while making smooth spraying passes.
To try and match all the above mentioned conditions is very difficult at best. And a keen eye will spot the metallic flakes if they are laying on a different plane,reflecting light differently.
A complete respray is necessary if you want uniformity in the reflection from the car.

Originally Posted by jagent

Clarke, having said that, yours looks particularly fine in the photo, I think you had a good result there.

Originally Posted by Dutch-Cat

Clear coat separation usually finds it's origin in impatience of the spray painter.
If the clear coat is applied too soon after the base coat (it really should be completely dry and matted out evenly with modern waterbased paints), the base coat will keep fuming out underneath the clear coat and eventually break to the surface. The clear coat will detach then.

When respraying, allow at least half an hour for the base coat to dry out in the paint booth at at least 20 degrees celcius, before applying the clear.