Originally Posted by Davey

I have done several guitars, which would be about 1.5' square areas from 2000 grit to mirror-shiny by hand, it takes at least 2 hours and yeah by the end my shoulder, fingers, forearms are aching.

The first 80% (getting a good shine) takes about 15 minutes. Getting every last scratch out... Takes what seems like an eternity.

Mainly I do it because the whole surface has edges and holes and what-not for the controls, and it's just asking to be burned through if you use a machine, so I've never bought one. You focus on everything in between the holes/edges and carefully avoid all that stuff, even by hand you can easily burn through.

For a car, yeah, unless you are doing very small touch-up it's pretty dumb not to just go get a small buffer.