The trick is to sand in one direction until you've wet sanded everything as smooth as you can get it, then sand at a 90° angle to that until you've sanded all of those scratches out, then step up to a finer grit and do it again. You can see the scratches best that way. Eventually they'll all come out, but usually not until 800-1000 grit. going from 600 to 1500 is too great of a jump. The part is ready for the polisher after going the 2nd direction with 600 grit. I did the front of my head to 1500 grit because it's too hard to get in there with the polisher, and doing that allowed me to hand-polish it. I took my valve cover down to 800 grit and machine-polished it, and it's a bit shinyer than my head.

But no matter how much you polish that thing, it won't become a DSM :rofl: j/k

I just like polished parts because of originality. 99% of the mofo's out there don't have the patience, time, or know-how to do it. And when you're done, it actually FEELS to just know you have it. It's impractical as hell on a race motor, borderline-futile. I do it anyway.

You're so totally gonna be addicted, man. I'm warning you. Your post count is going to stop rising. Your girl will leave you. A few things about the polishing wheel... Long sleeves and pants. You'd better like getting black boogers, earwax, pillow cases, raccoon-face from the safety goggles. That's the real sacrifice. But the second you see that finish on there, you can't stop.