If the substance polishes the surface,,then it has some sort of abrasive in it. That is what Polishing is.
Some can be extremely fine.
Flitz is around 4000 polishing grit.
Mothers Mag is a bit coarser at around 3000 grit.
Both are in the glass and plastic lens polishing catagory though.
Tripoli was orig a natural clay substance with an extremely fine grit in it. Used for polishing metal to a very high polish it was also used in early lens polishing
That doesn't mean they don't or can't remove material, because they do. They have to to do the Polishing which is to remove marks that are on the surface that are just slightly larger in size than those left by the grit size of the compound used.
Hot Blue color is only a couple of .0000" of an inch thick.
It doesn't take much to reduce that thickness even with 3000 or 4000 grit polish AND some pressure.
Used gently, it will easily remove oxidation, dried lube, dirt and other substances that block the beauty of a well done polished and blued metal surface. Remember it's the metal polish UNDER the bluing that gives the bluing it's final gloss and shine. You can't make that any better than it was originally before the bluing was done .
Easy does it with the Flitz and Ma'Mag polishing compounds on bluing and on plated surfaces.
Nickel is quite hard and will take more polishing than the rest. But the soft plating of Gold and Silver will wear very easily even though when first plated they do under go a buffing to bring up their shine.
The plating is soft and thin.
Case Colors,,thickness is measured in microns. The hardness itself in .000".
The colors can disappear very quickly though some applied are more wear resistant than others.
The 'soft colors', thoughs applied to parts w/o actually case hardening them (to avoid warping generally) are usually easily worn.
Cyanide case colors seem to wear quite well.
