Many OEM stainless rails originally had a "brushed" finish, and were not polished. When new, the brushed finish reflects light to give a polished look with out the expense of polishing.
If this is the case with yours, you are probably really wasting you time trying to achieve a "polished" look.
To get to "polished" all traces of the brushed finish would need to be sanded out, [as they are actually scratches in the metal], with finer and finer grit, then polished with cotton buffs with finer and finer rouge, specificly for stanless.
It can be a very involved process.
I built a stern rail for my boat with a bracket for a solar panel using polished tubing. To polish the welded areas, I used an air powered right angle die grinder, with 3 stages of sanding pads, then a hard cotton buff, with 3 different grits of stainless rouge, then a soft buff, with the finest stainless rouge. It was quite a time consuming process.
If your rails are originally polished, you can bring them back much easier, starting out with the soft buff, and the finest rouge.
"McMaster-Carr" sells 1/4" buff holders and 2" buffs which "might" work on a drill, but the higher speed of a die grinder will work much better.
All that being said, you need to first determine if your's were orig. polished or brushed.
robj
