I've read through some of the how tos on here about polishing and have attempted my first piece.



I went through the sand papers from 320 up to 1500 and have used about 2 ounces of tripoly polish already.



It should be pretty shiney with just the tripoly alone right? I haven't tried the white rouge yet but there must be something I'm missing here are some pics and they didn't turn out as I had hoped lol.



https://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g...1/IMG_0144.jpg

https://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g...1/IMG_0145.jpg



Here's my dirty wheel



https://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g...1/IMG_0143.jpg

from the pictures id guess its a case of incomplete sanding. hard to tell from the pictures but i can see scratches that look deeper then 1500 fo sure. check your wheel for scratchy contaminants. could also just be dirty.. give it a good cleaning (just water n a rag) see if that helps. tripoli should make it pretty shiney, but for shits n giggles if u havent already, hit a spot with the white rouge for a bit an watch what happens, night and day. one thing to note tho is the shineier it gets the more any imperfections are going to stand out, so make sure you have that sucker sanded primo before polishing it, i found that tryin to polish out even fine sanding marks typically left a very fine orange peel effect from the repeated buffing, your results will vary.

also i noticed the tubes, if thats your compound have a look at the contents. i stay away from anything but the bars from places like caswell http://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/buffing.htm and the like. i find most of the pastes n such contain amonnia of some sort an it reacts poorly with the aluminum and very poorly with the zinc a lot of aluminum parts contain. they create a great shine for about 15 seconds till it fogs up and looks like crap again. have a look at the ingredients, and give it a sniff, you dont want ammonia. if you got it from a parts store it probably has ammonia, mothers an all those name brands are bunk an a waste of time, you get great shine that doesnt last the time it takes to show someone.

you should be okay finish sanding with 600 wet. then start with black emery compound then you must switch wheels on your buffer and thn use white compound to finish. you should use the buff wheel in your picture for the black (rough) compound and the wheel for the white should be the looser flap type cloth wheel instead of being spiral sewn its sewn just around in a ring. They look alot like the one you have but they are alot looser.

Dry Sand to 320 grit, then (spiral sewn treated wheel) emery bar, then (spiral sewn regular wheel) white rouge bar. I do this on a 3/4 HP buffer and it turns out great every time. I've found this to be the quickest way to get final results especially on flatter surfaces. Caswell and Eastwood have everything you would need.