altort wrote:Did you have the castings off of the cabinet when you stripped the paint? I assume you used paint stripper, I like to use a bead blasting cabinet with glass beads nothing to abrasive or it will pit the aluminum castings, you can get most of the scratches and gouges off, it takes time and patience, start with a coarse sand paper like a 150 grit to get the deep scratches off but be sure to work the entire length not just were the scratch his or it will leave a low area that will show once polished, note that there will be some small pitting that you wont be able to get out. Once you are done with the initial sanding, switch to a finer sand paper, keep going to finer sand paper once you get the scratches of the previous grit out, I start usually with a 150 paper and I go all the way up to a 800, switching to a wet sand at 600 grit, this will minimize time on the wheel.
Once on the wheel start with a tight stitched wheel with a fast cut compound, just like sanding keep going to a finer compound and a looser wheel in steps, I have two buffers with four different stitched wheel so I don't need to keep swapping wheels.
You need to be careful on the wheel or it will rip the casting out of your hands, take extra care with the upper casting as it can brake around the goose neck by the back lip.
Before you paint you will need to clean all the compound form the castings with lacquer thinner or your paint wont take.
Take your time.
Thanks altort for the input! Yes, I removed both castings from the cabinet before stripping off the paint. I used a product called "Citri Strip", which worked great and didn't have the bad fumes. I then used a nylon brush, scotch brite pad and toothpick to remove the paint. We'll see how the sanding and polishing goes next!
Collin