Smith & Wesson 586 Reblue Part 1

Another refinishing project. This one is a S&W 586-4 "Distinguished Combat Magnum" with a 6" full under-lug barrel and square butt grip frame.

The L Frame 586 was introduced in 1980, this one being a 586 - 4 puts is birthday in 1993.

The previous owner had attempted to blue the gun using an off the shelf cold blue solution and the results were not that great.
The gun has some left over pitting that I will need to content with.
Here are the before pictures

During another attempt at rebluing the previous owner used "Durablue" which looks like Navy Blue paint (see the ejector button)

The trigger has some pitting that I will need to remove 

  
The hammer has the same pitting

I tried to get a close up of the cylinder, it has some small pits that will need removing.

I was able to get the gun disassembled without incident, time to strip the old finish(es) off. 

using Loctite brand naval jelly I liberally coated the parts with the pink goo and waited 10 min

I then clean off the scale left by the naval jelly with the wire wheel.

The first part to get polished is the ejector rod, no pits, so I just went straight to the buffer

Then I went to work on the cylinder. I built this fixture using an aluminum bushing (which fit the inside of the S&W cylinder perfectly) along with a #10-24 x 2.25" cap screw

Once assembled I burnished the flutes and cylinder stops on the wire wheel (to both clean and give them a matte appearance). I then polished length wise with 100 grit, then put it on the drill press and spun it while polishing it cross ways

I repeated the process with 220 grit paper

Then 320 grit

400 grit

600 grit

finally crocus cloth

Stay tuned to part 2 where we will clean up and polish the frame & barrel