This is probably the most monotonous part of the whole job - and thankfully its entirely optional. My kit was quite dusty and dull looking so I decided I would polish the hardware - this includes all the lugmounts and rims. If you have a newish kit/well looked after you can skip this step. Its best to do it while the drums are drying as to occupy yourself. You can use silvo or any other 'silver' polish to polish them. Unfortunately I didn't have any silvo so I just used methylated spirits. If your especially rich you can simply purchase new lugmounts/rims that are very shiny.
The basic idea here is you get your bag of hardware from before and polish each part individually - taking care not to lose any of the screws/hardware. Grab your silvo and read the instructions. Put a bit of a silvo on the end of a rag and then polish the hardware using the silvo. You then wipe off the silvo with a clean rag. You then grab another rag and use methylated spirits to polish the same piece of hardware again - wiping it off afterwards. After finishing your hardware should have a brilliant finish and your refinishing job will look all the more impressive. As you can see from the pictures using methylated spirits alone is quite ineffective - but it does look better from a distance.
©Daniel Wright 2004