Anybody who has polished metal knows how much of a PITA this is. Only special clients can get me to polish metal cause its expensive/nasty work.
First stage...

 

Thats one hell of a difference. What cleaner did you use? The cleaner I use gets results like that. I use California Customs Deoxidizer then a polish by the same company. I use it on our fire truck and it's one of the cleanest and shiniest in Polk County.

 

high speed buffer and rubbing compound. Im sure i could get it way better with some more time and maybe trying the other compound i have, but hey it looks great the way it is. It was only a $30 box

 

Hell yeah looks great. I think my bedrails on my dodge may get that treatment. That seems like it would work a little better for large surface areas. Thanks for the info. I'll give it a try.

 

Looking good man, polishing is very time consuming.

 

Here's a shot of my wife's 5-slot mags before and after I polished them

-Josh

 

yep and the cool thing about it, is that people junk aluminum when it looks bad and all it needs is a little polish

 

Awesome. I need to do this to my wheels.

I have some rubbing compound and some mothers metal polish. which should i use?

 

compound it 1st then pollow with the polish. I would suggest a compound designed specifically for aluminum.

I also would suggest doing it with a buffer, but if you dont have one, Wolfgang makes a wool ball (same wool as thier metal polishing pads) that attatches to a drill like a powerball, but yields much great results as the wool is a better medium than the foam is IMO.

But what do I know

 

Awesome. Thanks for the help.