I did a Shimano crank by hand a few months back. It had salt water stains on it and it looked terrible, but it would not polish at all because it was anodized so I did the oven cleaner thing. 10 minutes of cleaner, then wash off, followed by 0000 steel wool, then 3M pad with auto-body rubbing compound. At this point it is a dull brushed finish. Then Mothers polishing compound until it's almost a mirror shine. It took about 1 hour to do both crank arms. I'm sure a power wheel would have saved 55 minutes.