I'm delirious. I've been in my sink sanding for 10 hours now. Ignore this if you want. If there's no interest in this thread, let it die. Any input from others that have done this is welcome. Please discuss what you know about polishing. Post pictures of your work, etc. No finish looks as good as a polished finish, and few people are crazy enough to do it... so if you're out there, HOLLER!

I've put myself through polishing projects before, and they were fairly small and simple. Now I have a little more than a dozen parts to polish, and some of them are pretty frikkin large. Maybe I overdid it this time.

I'm a little old fashioned when it comes to engine building. Depending on the quality of the cast of the part, the way you used to have to polish stuff was...

1. wet-sand your part using low grit sandpaper to remove cast imperfections
2. wet-sand your part using medium grit sandpaper to remove the damage done by the low grit sandpaper
3. wet-sand your part using fine grit sandpaper to remove all scratches left by the medium grit sandpaper
4. wet-sand your part using ultra-fine grit sandpaper so you don't have to spend every weekend polishing it
5. (optional) wet-sand your part for 10 hours using insanely-high grit sandpaper until you see your reflection
6. Use an air-powered DIY grinder with polishing wheels, and the appropriate polishing compound to glaze on an ultra-reflective finish... let the polishing wheel do all the work.
7. Repeat step 6 until you're happy with it.

... but nowdays, I'm sure there are more efficient ways of achieving this type of finish because that method is a PITA. Seriously. Doing it will bore you to death. It's like watching flys f***. (it still works, though)

Does anyone know of any other sanding tools for detail sanding? What's the smallest one you've seen? Are there any good mechanical processes for polishing parts? What's this stuff I hear about a tumbler? What's a Steel-abbraider? Is there a better way to do this? Or is hand-sanding still the best way to get a great finish?