Polishing the sides of a blued 1911 slide

S

Shmackey

New member
Did a search here and in The Smithy, couldn't find it.

I have a Kimber Custom Classic and I'm getting the urge to change it up a little. I'd like to polish the sides of the slide. I'd also like not to mess anything up.

What's the approach for doing this? I would imagine I'd use a *very* flat surface, like a piece of glass, and some fine-grit abrasive. But what kind and what grit? How much? And how do I avoid going down to bare metal?
 
You will have to re-blue it after you polish it. You can't polish a matte blued gun without removing the finish. Bluing just isn't that deep or tough.
 
Assuming that you are aware that a reblue will be necessary, here's what I do when polishing slide/frame flats. Use three wooden paint stir sticks with 320, 400, and 600 grit emery glued on using contact cement. Oil the slide flats, then starting with the coarse grit stroke back and forth in one direction only (not side-to-side or circular). Clean the gunk off and re-apply the oil often. Don't be impatient, and expect to take several hours if you want it to look nice. By the time you've worked down to the fine grit you should have a nice flat polished surface.

It's trial and error BTW, and only practice will make perfect.
 
If you want a shiny finish, yuo'll need finer grit than 600. Check out the "Polishing Stainless" post over in the Smithy. I left a long-winded technical explanation on how to polish metal down to a mirror finish, if that's what you're after. The info there applies to all metals, really.

But it will definitely entail a re-blue.
 
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