On the topic of polished or unpolished, the following photos of a gearbox cover I recently bought might be of interest. The polishing included power sanding, a whole lot of elbow grease with ever-finer grits of sandpaper, finally, followed by buffing with two different compounds.
I won't hijack the topic by describing why I needed the cover (I'll eventually get to that in a separate topic).
Apologies if I had to outbid one of my forum friends here to get this cover.
Richard L.
P.S. It might not be obvious, but the "after" picture is on top.
P.P.S. I am well aware that such renovations are not rare to some of our esteemed members, but it is somewhat rare for me.
P.P.P.S. If you looked closely at the shiny photo when I previously posted this, you know why I removed and reposted it.
