Dremel polishing wheel for feed ramp??

C

CMOS

New member
I have a Dremel too kit but I keep hearing about some of you using a "polishing wheel" and polishing compound for things like ramp jobs.

Can y'all give me some more info on this polishing technique, and maybe even a Dremel part number for this wheel?

The wife's got a new Sig I want to poish up. :)

Thanks,
CMOS
 
Currently use their conical shaped felt tips and red Jewler's Rouge. If you use RJR it's important not to use too high an RPM. The cloth wheels don't hold up well.
 
I use the hard, bullet shaped, felt tips as well. I also have a couple of them that I've whittled down with a razor blade to a more slender, pointed profile. This makes it easier to reach into tight spots. Jeweler's rouge is good but if you can't find it, Flitz metal polish works well.
 
One word of caution here, a Dremel with jewler's rouge takes metal off faster than a lot of folks realize. Be careful and go slow! Taking it off is easy, putting it back is another story! I've seen more than one feed ramp ruined with a Dremel in amateur hands.
 
I'll agree with the caution about taking too much material off. I polish a bit, then wipe it and inspect it, then polish a little more. I've done at least 50 feed ramps, and I've never destroyed a gun, so it's possible. :)
 
Egad!

Dremel tools and guns should be mutually exclusive, I've seen more darn firearms made nonfunctional by the home gunsmith and a Dremel tool. My 1903A4 restoration almost wasn't, the prior owner has started grinding off the rear sight base on the receiver, then quit halfway through...

As for feed ramps, it's amazing what some Q-Tips, and some Flitz or Pol, can do to smooth it up, before the high-RPM power tools come into play.
 
I also use the felt tips and red jewlers rouge. Caution is always a good thing,use a light touch and wipe and check often. Some ramps polish faster than others. Keltec,Ruger, *&* polish fairly fast,but the ramp on my CZ-75 was the opposite. I polished and polished with before I saw any change at all. After totally wearing out a new felt tip I had a very mild polish job. It worked fine before the polished ramp so I didn`t feel it was necessary to waste another tip to get a mirror finish. Marcus
 
I don't own a moto-tool. What I did was buy a felt polishing tip and chuck it up in my drill. Worked perfect. Yeah, a Q-tip works great if you want to spend all week polishing a rough ramp. I took sandpaper to mine before I polished it. Now it has a mirror shine.
 
I use my Dremel with the felt (not the hard, conical-shaped) polishing wheel and Simichrome polish. You'd have to polish for five or six years to remove enough feedramp metal to hurt anything, using a felt wheel and Simichrome. I also use that setup for polishing all metal-to-metal trigger assembly parts in my Glocks, with excellent results.
 
Well I'm back with my Dremel tips and I did have some Semichrome polish to boot. I should have everything I need now. Heading into the shop now...

CMOS
 
Use a felt wheel and either Simichrome or Flitz. This will polish like you wouldn't believe without removing metal. Stay away from anything that has grit. This will remove metal. To polish you don't have to remove metal.
 
I'll have to present a dissenting opinion here. If you polish metal, you most certainly are removing material! If you get a mirror shine on that feed ramp, some material has indeed been polished away, or it would look just like it did when you started. You may not remove enough to change the shape in any measurable amount, but some material is indeed gone. The trick is not to change the contour or shape of the feed ramp in the process.
 
My Dremel tool came with a cylindrical abrasive-impregnated rubber tip about 1" long and 1/4" in diameter. When I first saw it, I thought "Just perfect for polishing the feed ramp on an old Hi Power." I was right - it worked fine.

I also have seen Dremel "kits" with abrasive impregnated rubber tips in various shapes and with different grades of abrasive.

Don't confuse the polishing tips with grinding tips. I suspect a lot of guns have been damaged by people grinding when they should have been polishing.

Test the tip on a piece of scrap steel first to see how it works.
 
Have you ever seen the feedramp of a Steyr M40? The thing puts most mirrors to shame. That's why it feeds reliably. I use a large cotton patch, and some flitz, and a little elbow grease. So shiny, so buttery smooth, you'd think you were looking at the chest of a super model.

I'd avoid the dremel because I doubt you can take enough metal off with just elbow grease to make your gun unreliable, but I know quite a few who've needed new barrels because they were "Dremel happy".

Albert
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top