Achieving a high mirror finish

[Didi]

Hi
I agree with Carole about Menzerna. Its still a bit mucky but at least I don't wind up looking as if I've done 5 hours under a sun bed when I've finished. With these black marks, is it possible they are streaks of polish still lurking? I get these quite a bit and find that loading more polish on the wheel will sometimes swipe them off. if they are ,then a toothbrush, (I use an old electric one) with detergent, hot water and elbow grease works well. My ultrasonic just doesn't have the oomph to get stubborn bits off. The only way Ive found to get polish out of tight corners is the toothbrush method.
Didi

[Ivy]

Thank you everyone for your advice. I will certainly look up all the suggestions but I can see that I just have to keep persevering and hopefully my technique will improve and therefore my results.
Ivy

[Truffle & Podge]

Not sure if this will help but i've found the major key to be the prep before the final "polishings" i love the radials from cookies and work through the yellow (coarsest) blue (medium) & green (fnest) then move onto luxi blue (which is like tripoli but water based), luxi white (basically rouge) and finish with orange (for a super lustre). Being careful to clean off any residue, visible or otherwise, between compounds. Just to note you obviously know to use a seperate mophead for each compound and to not contaminate. I make fairly big pieces so it takes quite some time and it's been trial & error but it's working well for me finally anyways. oh and after final polish, clean, dry and buff with an anti tarnish impregnated silver cloth, it's a good idea to regularly clean off greasy fingerprints during the forging process too. x