Now we get down to business, first we de-grease the gun and then apply naval jelly to remove the old bluing and any rust
The bottom of the grip frame is pretty rough
Here you can see the pits in the slide, I want to preserve all of the stamps, so removing those pits will not be easy or quick
I filed and sanded the bottom of the grip fame, so it looks freshly machined again
I then started on the sides of the frame, beginning with 220 grit
I worked my way up to 600 grit
I then smoothed out the frame slide junction at the rear of the pistol
cleaning up the palm safety
I then cleaned up the front of the slide
....and then I began removing pits from the sides of the slide, the pictures show the progress, but keep in mind they represent a lot of hours of sanding using small bits of sand paper wrapped around popsicle sticks, match sticks and pencils to get the small areas between the roll marks.
The barrels and guide rods on these guns were left in the white, so I polished them both, paying special attention to the parts that will be seen when the gun is assembled
The trigger also got a high polish finish. The parts are ready for bluing
Stay tuned for part 3 where we will blue the gun and reassemble.