Good result buffing al but taking too long?

[vw1320]

Hello all. I have been browsing the forums for a while and gained a good bit of knowledge. In need of a little help though. I am in the middle of refinishing some two piece 15″ aluminum wheels and while I am getting good results its taking a long time to buff the lips.

I am using the Eastwood 6″ Buff Shop kit with the 1/3 hp 3600 rpm motor. I have found the best results by sanding with 220 to get rid of some curb damage and corrosion followed by 400 and then a quick pass wet sanding with 600. I was using tripoli on a spiral buff followed by white on a loose but wasn’t blown away by the color so I tried one using stainless on a spiral and another using emory on a spiral (both followed by the trip and the white). Those two gave me pretty good results. Only problem is after all these steps I have three to four hours in the lips of the wheels alone.

My questions are:

How long should it take someone with experience but not a pro to do this kind of buffing?
How quick/slow should I move the piece? How do you know when to reload the compound? It seems like I am either moving too quickly or buffing with no compound requiring multiple passes.
Do I just need bigger buffs and motor in order to do this sort of thing quickly? I have a bunch of other stuff I want to polish but at this rate it will take me forever. Thanks for any tips you can give me 🙂

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