Those Trizact pads are awesome but you're right, ridiculously expensive!!!!!! Especially if you are buying one at a time, I pay $100 for a box of 15 up here, keep trying to find them cheaper but I haven't year....... The 3M polish and pads are also awesome, those bottles of polish go a LONG way if you're not wasting them. You could probably polish 20 firebirds with one bottle of the extra cut and one of the swirl remover.

The other thing Dan that I thought I'd mention is on the buffer, Keep the RPM as low as the buffer will go, never try to convert an angle grinder into a buffer (I've seen many people try this simply becaues they look the same). I run about 600rpm for buffing, keeps the surface cool and greatly reduces the risk of burning an edge.

The window of cure time you mention is also very important but different with every clear. I found the PPG 2001 or 2021 clears need to be buffed between 36 and 48 hours for the nicest polish (assuming correct temps and humidity during curing) but the new Omni MP262 clear (VOC compliant) really loves to be sanded and polished after about 4 days of curing. The older MC260 wanted to be polished roughly 24 hours after, much longer and it was to hard to pull scratches out, any sooner and it was to soft. The RM DC95 clear was just a little longer than the 2001 or 2021, and the new PPG ECS700 clears like to be done after about 48 hours but not longer than 72 hours (I don't actually like the new PPG clear, the new Omni sprays, polishes and looks better).

I am so glad you mentioned that there is no need to overreduce the clear, that leads to nothing more than product instability, possible adhesion issues, and it just doesn't look as nice, proper spraying technique and good equipment make a much bigger difference than over reducing to "save weight".

Great job on the Firebird my friend, That jet doesn't seem like a difficult bird to paint, but there is a lot more surface area than one thinks!
Jeremy