I apologize if this is repeating other threads (I've not done a search). I had limited luck polishing my wheels (described in other recent posts). Simichrome struck me that it would be pretty expensive by the time I'm finished, Brasso did not do as good a job as Simichrome, and Harbor Freight's buffing wheel and white rouge seemed like it would take forever and a week.
This evening I decided to try the compound I had sitting on my shelf for, oh, maybe 30 years or so. This is the same stuff used by auto body painters in pre history days, when they had to lightly sand, then compound, then polish a painted car. I remembered that Meguire's various cleaners are rated as being more or less aggressive cutting and this gave me the idea to try what I had on hand.
First I smeared the compound on the wheel in a small area and rubbed it by hand. That seemed to do a nice job so I applied more over roughly half of the wheel (it is still laced up) and hit it with a 3" buffing wheel in my electric drill. Every once in a while I cleaned the wheel on an old drywall rasp (simply expanded metal nailed to a block of wood). When I'd done one whole side (the flat and the rim), I took another wheel and repeated the process with polishing compound (a finer cutting material). I wiped the wheel between passes and when I was finished, it looks so much better than when I started. I might yet try the rouge, but I could stop here.
