what kind of part is it? there are many levels of finish in chroming, and
cheaper products are generally chromed to a lower standard. a good qaulity
chroming will start with copper, sometimes severl layers of it, then nickel,
then sometimes several light layers of chrome plating on top of that. a
good crhome job is very wear and scratch resistant. a poor one scratches
pretty easily.

Im not sure what you mean by a number 6 medium wheel, but i did suggest
going with the lightest wheels and buying them from an abrassives
specialist. is the wheel you have very soft? would you rub it on your face
comfortably? is it a very light fluffy white cotton material, or more like
sisal? is it stitched together tightly, or a loose buff?

It sounds to me like what has happened is you have a very lightly
cosmetically chromed surface and you've gone at it with a slightly too
course wheel/polish and removed the top layer of chrome. what your seeing
underneath is probably copper. at this stage, you've got to make a few
choices... paint it, remove it and have it re-chromed, or just galvanise
it yourself if the appearance is not to important.

im guessing that the appearance is pretty important since you went to all
this trouble to polish it, so chroming is probably the likely choice. it
will cost you a few dollars, but shop around and you may find a place that
will do it cheaply. on the plus side, the new chrome finish is likely to be
better cosmetically, and more durable than the manufacturers finish.

Shaun

It didn't seem to work. It did seem to reduce the swirl almost completely
and reduced the cracks significantly but it caused several other problems:

First I seemed to remove the layer of chrome. There are regions where its
a gold luster(slightly more yellow) that fade into regions where its more
bluish/silver. It happens on places where I couldn't polish well such as
edges or holes. Also in the right light you can see lines sorta like
stainless steel. I used only jewelers rouge and one that was suppose to
be finer(jewelers was 5 and I got 6 too).

While in normal light it looks find and if its bright and not at the right
angle it looks all like chrome. But you can also see how messed up it was
in the right light.

I'm not sure what I did wrong. Only thing I can think of is that I used a
buffing wheel that was to strong. It was 6 Medium and it was the only one
Lowes had so I got that. I'm not sure if my "technique" was right or what.
It worked but is definately not back to the chrome plated look unless the
light is directly shining on it and not at an angle. In ambient light you
can see the cross over from the yellowish to blue that looks like a dirt
line or something. I think I wore off the chrome layer which is probably a
pretty bad thing? That or its a layer of oxidation or something?

;/

Jon