lacquer cracking?

sean1141

Hi all. Hope somebody can help me here..
I recently sprayed my engine cover gloss black and finished it off with a few coats of lacquer. I left it a few days to harden before I sanded it with p2000 wet&dry and then machine polished it to a mirror finish.
I was happy with it and put it on the car but after a few days I noticed that there was cracks appearing in the lacquer finish.. I take it the heat from the engine is causing this or did I do something wrong when painting/polishing??
I also done my battery cover and that is perfect but it would not be subject to the same heat as the engine cover.
I have the cracks sanded out again and plan to paint and lacquer it again.
Is there anyway I can prevent the cracks appearing again?

I sprayed it with rattle cans as I don't have access to spray guns/ compressor etc

heat is causing the lacquer to crack.
Did you use high temperature paint under the lacquer?
If not it will burn off soon too.
Here ya go
http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SearchCmd?srch=very+high+temperature+paint&x=19&y=10&action=search&storeId=10001&catalogId=10151&langId=-1

sean1141

No I didn't use high temp paint. Didn't think i would need it on a plastic cover??

Owen

You're also going to need to take off all of the old paint, or it'll crack under the high temp stuff again, and your work will be for nowt.

sean1141

how would the plastic primer work out, will that not crack??