Is it possible to apply a nickel finish to a gun without first removing the Blued finish beneath?
I have a pre-war P35 High Power, which originally would have originally had a rust blued finish. Before I acquired it, it had been Nickel Plated. I've thought about trying to remove the Nickel and rust-blue the pistol again, but as I was looking at it I realized that it all of the places where the nickel finish is rubbing away (most of the areas that regularly experience friction) rather than being in the white, it's black. Is it possible that this gun was simply nickel plated right over the bluing?
If so, is there any chance that some of the bluing could be intact underneath if the nickel was reverse electroplated? Or could there be some other way of preserving and uncovering any original bluing if it's still there?
I have a pre-war P35 High Power, which originally would have originally had a rust blued finish. Before I acquired it, it had been Nickel Plated. I've thought about trying to remove the Nickel and rust-blue the pistol again, but as I was looking at it I realized that it all of the places where the nickel finish is rubbing away (most of the areas that regularly experience friction) rather than being in the white, it's black. Is it possible that this gun was simply nickel plated right over the bluing?
If so, is there any chance that some of the bluing could be intact underneath if the nickel was reverse electroplated? Or could there be some other way of preserving and uncovering any original bluing if it's still there?