Crankcase cover Polishing

[Mixagon_imp]

My take on this is the clear coat needs to come off first with paint stripper.
The forks on my Yamaha Bulldog were stone chipped and salt had got under the clear coat so I stripped all the clear coat and as bflint says above use different grades of wet and dry.
I then used a buffing wheel in a drill with compound and polished to a mirror finish and left it at that, no new clear coat added I just polished them once in a while with alloy polish and they looked brilliant.

I have seen on Amazon some half cover casing guards for the cb1100, maybe a set would half the polishing needed on the op's crankcase cover?