Hey Bill, you're scaring the children!
This kinda talk used to scare me off going higher than about 150... I'd get burned out, skip grits, and get a B in shop class.

Sanding does take time, but it takes the most time with the rough grits.
As one moves up through the finer and finer grits, it goes more quickly and hand sanding stops being an issue. Above 220 on a kayak I doubt any machine would be faster than just folding up the sandpaper and going to work. Steel wool is wow, lookee that!

The real problem and time waster is skipping grits or moving through them too quickly. Scratches never go away if we jump from 80 grit to 180... I've got several samples that proves this.

50-150 is like paddling, 180 -400 is like a just-in-case skimming brace, 600-800 petting a dog, 1000 and up is like ah...licking an ice cream cone.

: Sanding up thru 2000 grit then polishing is called color sanding,
: good way to get a perfect surface, also alot of work if you have
: to do it by hand. Each grit of sand paper will only take the
: scratches out of the next more course grit, so there are a heck
: of alot of steps getting to 2000. And you need a fairly heavy
: thickness of paint to start with or you'll wear thru it with all
: the sanding.

: As mentioned before, if you want a perfect surface, it starts with
: the stripping and then the sanding of the wood, then the epoxy
: etc. If you don't do each step perfectly, the end result won't
: be what you want. Takes a serious amount of time and patience.

: Bill H.