Our metal polishing compounds are used with our Airway Buffing Wheels to increase the effectiveness of the wheel while being used during the cutting, buffing, and polishing process. Some are of a coarser consistency and are usually used to remove scratches while the others are finer, which lends to them being used to shine and finish your work. They should be applied to airway buffing wheels by coating the edges of the airway buffs like below:
 
How do I prep for polishing?
Prepping is almost entirely all about sanding. We recommend starting with 180 grit for most wheels and stepping forward to 220 grit, and finishing with 400 grit sanding disks. Most polishing, for aluminum, can be polished well after prepping with 400 grit—finer grits are not usually necessary before polishing with tripoli compound.
 
What are the steps for polishing aluminum?
Brown Tripoli should be used for initial cutting and buffing, with the aim of removing more apparent scratches and blemishes during metal restoration on aluminum. It is the first step on on polishing aluminum and is paired with our orange airway buffing wheels. It is not used on stainless for polishing. It is an aggressive heavy cutting compound intended to remove material quickly getting down to the initial shine.
Green rouge is used as the second step in polishing aluminum. It is paired with our yellow airway buffing wheel. This should produce a fantastic clean shine.
For finishing we have the Competition Purple compound. This will give you a show finish when you pair it with a white flannel buffing wheel.