Cleaning/Polishing process

Looking for tried and true cleaning/polishing process.

Unfortunately, I need to go in for surgery. I will have a bunch of free time during recovery with limited physical activity.

I have a few older model S&W's, a couple of pre model marked examples and some with S serial numbers. They are nice examples but not what I would call collector grade. I thought I could give them a spit shine to pass sometime.

I have seen some before and after PICS in the forum and the great results obtained.

Could someone enlighten me please. I recall Fritz polish being mentioned often.

Thank in advance
Muz

Flitz and Renwax would be your go to products here. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

After you clean and lube the action with proper product, (Hoppe's, CLP, etc), then use either flitz or Mothers Mag Polish, "gently" to clean and polish the surface. Then use Renaissance Wax to protect the finish.

muzhunter said:

Looking for tried and true cleaning/polishing process.

Unfortunately, I need to go in for surgery. I will have a bunch of free time during recovery with limited physical activity.

I have a few older model S&W's, a couple of pre model marked examples and some with S serial numbers. They are nice examples but not what I would call collector grade. I thought I could give them a spit shine to pass sometime.

I have seen some before and after PICS in the forum and the great results obtained.

Could someone enlighten me please. I recall Fritz polish being mentioned often.

Thank in advance
Muz

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Muz, good luck with your surgery. I did the same after hip surgery and learned how to refinish during that time. I really enjoyed it. Revolvers don't take much in the way of tools. I suggest starting off with something simple like cylinders. I hand polished at first then eventually got a dremel tool and various buffing/stripping heads. Cylinders are great practice and it's hard to ruin a cylinder plus there are many nice guns that have banged up cylinders.

I worked my way up from cold blue, which works great, to rust blue, which is a process used on many antiques but is more involved. Here's a Luger from 1915 that was rusted and pitted, a shooter to begin with. I completely stripped it and rust blued it while i was recovering.

Muz, best of luck with your surgery, and very good thinking about how to productively spend some post-op time.
The advice above is great. I have used Flitz polish and Ren wax with outstanding results. I have been amazed how much 'crud' Flitz will remove with just a light polishing on both blue and nickel. Avoid a strong arm approach, and no power tools on nickel and blue finishes. Flitz will do the work without much effort on your part. It will be time well spent. And a final coat or two of Ren wax will make things pop! You may want to take a few before and after pictures. Get yourself several micro-fiber cloths for your final passes with flitz and Renwax. What a difference they make! They are available from Flitz and are able to be laundered as needed. I wish you luck and am looking forward to seeing some results.

Here is before and after on a nickel Baby Chiefs Special:
Before......



After.....



And here are a couple Chiefs Special 4-screw (not model marked), one satin blue (right), and the other high polish blue (left) shipped 1954ish (aka Model of 1953). Both after Flitz and Ren wax.... Both were somewhat dull when I got them.

Thank you for the information. Great PICS for inspiration!!
I will include before and after PICS.

Muz

Here is my process - it is pretty basic.

1. I remove the cylinder, thumb piece, and grips, then scrub the exterior (frame, barrel, cylinder and yoke) with an old soft toothbrush and Hoppes 9, and if needed run a bore brush with Hoppes 9 down the barrel and each of the cylinder charge holes (followed by a Bore Snake).

2. Rarely, but if I think it needs it (sluggish trigger return or gritty feel in the trigger pull), I may also remove the side plate and interiors and clean, lube, then reassemble (only do this if you know how to properly remove the side plate and the internals).

3. If there is any surface rust or spots, I very carefully tackle those areas with some fine bronze/copper wool and a little oil (NOTE: steel wool of any grade will scratch and remove the finish of a steel gun - the finer the wool, the finer the scratches).

4. I then wipe all the parts dry, and give them a very, very light buff with Flitz (a very small amount applied on, and pressed into the fabric of an old T-shirt). [EDITED to NOTE: This step is generally only performed when I get a new-to-me gun. As noted by various posters in this thread - Flitz is an abrasive and if used often or agressively, it will remove the bluing.]

5. Next I wipe everything (any Flitz or Hoppes residue) off with an old soft clean T-shirt.

6. Next - I apply a very thin coat of Renaissance Wax with my finger or thumb, let it dry, then buff with a micro-fiber cloth to a shine.

7. I also clean the grips with a clean soft toothbrush and if needed clean the grip screw, escutcheons and medallions with a q-tip lightly damp (almost dry) with Hoppes - then wipe the grips off and may (depending on the desired patina of the grips) polish the smooth parts lightly with a bit of Flitz on an old T-shirt (do not get any Flitz in the checkering).

8. The grips also get a coat of Ren Wax (not in the checkering) and a micro-fiber buff till they shine.

9. Next I lightly lightly oil (more is not better) the moving parts, and reassemble the gun and grips.

10. Lastly and most importantly, once fully assembled, I sit back and admire the beauty that is S&W - this may include a lighted magnifying glass (particularly with engraved guns) and micro-fiber buffing, or spot cleaning (Q-Tip damp (not wet) with Hoppes) any of the places that did not get perfectly clean or may have a bit of the Ren Wax that did not get buffed.

Some may take exception with some (or all) of my process, but it works for me and by the time I'm finished, I have gotten to know every centimeter of the gun.

A little OCD, but part of the fun for me.

A few photos of the end results:

info

Flitz is for nickel plated guns only, will remove blue from the others. I used 0000 steel wool with good thick oil on blued long gun with fantastic results, with comments from buyers on how how fantastic the bluing was on the old guns.

I clean and shine my S&W's , both blued and stainless steel with
Turtle Wax Chrome Polish and Rust Remover .

After cleaning , a wax job makes them look good and protect .
I use pure carnuba paste wax ( Mother's #05550 , is a good brand)
Iget the Turtle Wax cleaner and Mother's Gold in the auto section of Wally Mart or any Auto parts store ...
These products work very well , are easy to get and do not cost an Arm , Leg and First Born Male Child ... like some overp[riced wax !
Gary

ol777gunnerz said:

Flitz is for nickel plated guns only, will remove blue from the others.

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I use Flitz on all my guns as a cleaner...I have never had the problem as described above...I then polish as needed with Simichrome and wax with Renaissance Wax......Ben

Be careful with Flitz or Semi-chrome Paste, these are fine abrasive compounds and if used in a heavy-handed fashion, can remove the bluing.

One of our folks here recommended the use of Rust Remover.

Bluing is rust---black oxide by name. It's created by a process known as "controlled corrosion". Now it's pretty tough rust compared to the red stuff, but it's rust nonetheless---and rust remover removes it which is probably not what you had in mind.

Ralph Tremaine

If you have some red rust you'd like to have go away, Bronze Wool and some oil will do the trick. (The oil is just to reduce friction, so any oil is just fine.) If you have any difficulty finding Bronze Wool, keep looking; because Steel Wool removes rust too---the red stuff AND the black stuff--and I hear tell the black stuff is about .0002" thick, so it doesn't take all that long to do damage to it.

People do a lot of permanent damage "cleaning up" their guns.

I cringe when I read these kinds of posts.

Keep all abrasives and steel wool away from a gun's finish.

Truckman said:

I use Flitz on all my guns as a cleaner...I have never had the problem as described above...I then polish as needed with Simichrome and wax with Renaissance Wax......Ben

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My experience is Flitz won't necessarily remove the original hot blue or rust blue. However, if a gun was touched up or re-blued with cold blue, it will dissolve it. That's actually a pretty good way of testing for cold blue or a re-blue.

If someone decides to use Flitz on a blued gun, I suggest a couple of light passes with a paper towel. If the paper towel starts to turn black, STOP!

Gun Relics said:

My experience is Flitz won't necessarily remove the original hot blue or rust blue. However, if a gun was touched up or re-blued with cold blue, it will dissolve it.

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You are absolutely correct, I should have made that distinction......Ben

Lots of good suggestions here so I will add my observations and those learned from the conservator at the Springfield Museum .


NEVER use steel wool. Besides its higher abrasive quality it breaks down during the process and can leave micro particles on your gun. Should you miss any of those in the clean up process then they hang around and eventually start to form rust. Not good.

Secondly for those that think that Renaissance Wax is costly, you are correct. At initial purchase it seems pricy however you only need a small amount to do the entire gun and I'm still working out of a jar that I bought over 10 years ago. (and yes I own more than a couple of firearms)

The other points stated above are also good: If using oil, use a bunch. Always remove the stocks before doing any cleaning. Clean off the oil with alcohol before waxing. Always wax the metal (like you do to that classic car out in the driveway, wax keeps moisture from the metal and this is good.

DO NOT leave the gun coated with oil for storage. The damp oil attracts dust and eventually dries completely leaving the dust particles behind. They can draw humidity from the air (which is water) and will eventually rust the gun at that spot. Many older guns that were stored this way will show a freckling pattern in the finish and that is how it got there.

Again these are my tips and you can take them or leave them.....good luck and enjoy. OP good luck with your surgery, I just started chemo for prostate cancer so I know any medical ain't fun.............

Clean and polish with ... Turtle Wax Chrome Polish and Rust Remover .

Protect with Mothers Pure Carnuba Califorina Gold paste Wax (#05550)

The model 58 in my Avatar was a surface rust grungy dirty mess ...
carried by a Louisiana Motorcycle Cop for years ... he wasn't much on cleaning ... the above products cleaned it , after the wax job ... I didn't have to get it reblued ... Turned out Great !
Gary

Chrome polish is abrasive. It is buffing compound. FYI.

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.

Question: I have heard 2 versions of the Ren Wax application story. One said to remove any oil from the surface with alcohol or acetone, then apply the wax.
The other version said that to preserve the blue (keeping it from turning brown) a very thin coating of oil (wiped dry) should remain BEFORE waxing.
Which is correct?

I did not see Ed's Red or non synthetic AFT/acetone mix, mention for cleaning and rust removal. I find a both in either version great as part of the cleaning and polishing process.
JM2centavos...