you didn't necessarily do it wrong, but to actually remove a significant number of swirl marks by hand, it requires more than an hour. I spent 1 hour on just my hood with scratch-x, and I had minimal swirls, and gave up because doing the entire car would have taken 5-6 hours by hand and my arm would have never made it through it. Black would have been even worse. I purchased a porter cable and was much happier in the end. Scratch-x is more of a spot scratch remover.

what if you use just a random orbiter polisher like a 30$ won from your local autostore. Only one speed but would it work better than using it by hand?

not really because they bog down too much when you try to apply pressure. I can get more pressure by hand than one of those polishers. What IS a good investment if you plan on applying by hand is a palm handle kit such as this

http://danase.com/lacomahapadk.html
It allows for much more pressure, and helps prevent hand cramps from holding the foam applicators. The pads also come in different levels of aggressiveness so that you can do a better job with the scratch-x. I use it on smaller areas the porter cable can't reach

Thanks for the info redlude, that definately sounds like way too much work, especially with my black car. I'm definately buying one of those palm applicators.

Thanks again for the info,

Ray