I started off using the mantra of DON'T USE TOO MUCH POLISH. I think I took it a bit too far, and used TOO LITTLE. I was putting about 5 or 6 fingertip dots on the pad of the buffer, then spreading it around on the surface before turning the buffer on. This did very little in the way of creating the gray-black haze needed to get things started, and I ended up with very little polish happening in the first hour or two of work...
This is what I had before polishing began-
And here's what I had after five or six passes of F9 and a couple with F7-
The areas between the rivet lines were showing some signs of shine, but still cloudy, and the rivet lines were still aweful.
So I stopped there, and sought some online advise from those that have polished before me, and the tips were many. The biggest problem, pointed out by Pat, was that I was not using enough polish. In my efforts to be a polishing minimalist, I shorted myself the needed amount of paste, and was getting nowhere. After adding more fingertip sized dots on the surface to be polished (one every two to three inches), I got the nice gray-black haze to form on the surface.
And after experimenting with a few passes of F9, and G6 (worked the best on the rivet lines), I had MUCH better results, and am now very pleased to be on the road to having a polished RV!
The swirl marks are a good thing at this point because that means the metal is being moved in the compounding process. They will be removed later with the orbital buffer. The bottoms of one aileron and one flap are to this point, with four hours of work under my belt. Now that I have a better feel for the technique, it'll speed up somewhat, but it's still gonna take some hours!
I'll update with more pics as I move thru the stages!
