I have heard that soaking a nickel plated handgun in vinegar will dissolve the plating. How true is this statement? I always thought you needed reverse electrolysis to accomplish this task. I have a barreled frame that begs to be de-plated and soaking in vinegar sounds too simple to me. What am I missing?
The best way is to have a plating service electro-strip it for you.
When stripping plating you have to get ALL of it, or any tiny areas left will cause a chemical finish like bluing or Parkerizing to appear to have white freckles.
I'm in the process of abrading off the last tiny bit of nickel plating left on a S&W 1st. Mod.DA. Only about 10% or maybe a little less of the plating remained when I got it so I opted to just use successively finer abrasive paper to get it down to send out for reblue. I'm almost there. I did email inquiry of two local plating places to see if they'd do the reverse electrolysis and neither had the courtesy to reply which I thought was somewhat impolite. The pistol was very ugly when I got it (see pic). Good luck to you.
I bought some of the Caswell product to use on a couple small parts. I haven't tried it yet. For best results it says the bath should be heated. I haven.t figured out a way yo do that yet.
Nickel Plate Stripping
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