You guys are killing yourselves if you are polishing from start to finish by hand. I did 3 bike frames by hand until I found a faster way. The fastest way is to use air tools. You will need straight grinder and an angle one. I have 2 angled ones, 1 90 degree and the other 45. Start off with the straight grinder using cone and drum shaped grinding wheels to do the creases. There are 3 different grits of sanding discs, brown (rough), red (medium) and blue (fine). Do I need to tell you what to start off with? You need to try to keep the part as smoothe as possible, no dips or waves in the metal. After this is done you can start with the elbow grease. I usually start with 150 grit to get out the waves. From there you can go up to 400 wet. After that you can start to polish if you have a buffer motor. If you are going to use an air grinder with a buffing wheel on it, I would take the hand sanding to 600 wet. Your best bet, because you are not familiar with the process, is to contact The Eastwood Company as one of the other guys mentioned. They have everything you will ever need to polish (just bought the top dog Baldor buffer). Good luck

 

Don't do it by hand. Buy some sanding & buffing wheels and attach them to a drill. Or better yet, buy a polisher from Harbor Freight for $24. I polished a my UIM/TB & a set of 18" wheels: