Hi. I am working on the final stage of my first carbon fiber skinning project. I used all XRC products and carbon from easy composites and the process went smoothly. I did do some of the early sanding with a random orbital sander at 240 grit. I then wet sanded by hand using circular motions from 400 up to 3000. At that stage, the product looked really good, but had a dull, matte finish. I don't recall having any noticeable swirl marks at that time, but it is possible they just weren't visible.

Anyways, today I did the polishing. I did all polishing using pads that I also bought on easy composite and attached to my random orbital sander. I started with the NW1 super cutting compound ( black ), then used the TopFinish 2 ( black ), and then finished it off with the EasyGloss.

Below is the final result. As you can see, there are a lot of swirl marks. I'm not really sure how to proceed now. Should I just try a second round of polishing? Should I go all the way back to the sanding stage? Should I give it another coat of resin? Or should I spray it with some automotive clear coat? I have the clear coat and wouldn't mind doing that, but would that fill in the swirl marks? I don't want to spray it and then regret it.

What do you guys with experience recommend?

Thanks!