Looks like brushing might be the way forward..
Just floated a coat on with my favorite little brush for painting model planes, and found that the spraying lacquer behaves very well.
As I hoped the mechanical brushing action does tend to work the lacquer into the pores, or maybe it's breaking the surface tension over the pores and just bridging them. Either way there is some progress and I might even get away with just one more coat before I can get the spray gun out again.
What is suprising, is how good the finish is with the brush, where there are no pores..This would definatly be an option if no spraying facilities were available.!