[madmaxx]

the most important step in polishing is never use your hand to sand. Your hand makes straight scratches, always uses orbital. the orbital makes scratches also but you eye can't follow. I struggled polishing my spf wheels which were severely oxidized. the key was orbital sander 2" from garbage freight. than the real key was i ordered a kit that guys use to polish aluminum fuel tanks for big rigs. BINGO. the cotton buffs you got are a little soft to get the scratches out. what originally took me 4 hours with bad results took 30 minutes with mirror finish.