I am polishing wheel lips. I have sanded all the clearcoat off of them, and am wetsanded to 600 grit.

Now, I am getting a pretty good shine but it has a lot of fine scratches. I am using tripoli on a spiral sewn buff. I was fortunate enough to borrow a nice buffer from a buddy (baldor) so I can put some muscle into the polishing process.

It looks great, however when I buff out the tripoli stage with white rouge it really doesn’t improve it much. It takes a TON of buffing to start to pull out the tripoli scratches and even then it isn’t perfect. I am using a new loose sewn wheel. I am wondering if the old sewn wheel I am using for tripoli isn’t actually contaminated with something else.. or so far worn it is cutting too aggressively.

I have been cleaning the lips off between stages with laquer thinner and a microfiber cloth.

I also have issues with pitting in the wheels, it isn’t due to bad casting but due to the wheels being old and dinged up from rocks on the street. I may just say screw it, and leave the pits as long as I can get the compound out of them. If I do want to cut alot of material off to remove the pits (more like little dings) can I use black compound and spiral sewn buff?

Thanks everyone, this site is amazing.

Evan

BTW; I have read the tutorials and stickys, which were very helpful.