Those Split Times are really impressive! In the past, I was usually much closer to .33 seconds on splits and transitions.
That is the most beautiful work, I’ve seen on a gun. Larry Seecamp, maker of the Seecamp pocket guns, taught me to use Scotch-Brite when you had scratches on his guns. Worked like a charm. Blending slides and frames on a 1911 build takes patience, and slow file work. Your work is artful, and a joy to follow. I had a bobbed hammer Smith like yours, but, alas, lost it in a trade, been, mentally kicking myself since.Since I was going to be sanding wet, I spread a plastic shopping bag out flat on the workbench so that gritty liquid wouldn't be absorbed into the towel and spread to other projects.
As I said before, the method I used with the Scotch-Brite was not gentle. I scrubbed that sucker like I was a dishwasher with a health department inspector standing in the doorway. Some of the scrubbing was done with just the pad, other parts were done using a pad holder.
I'm running out of ways to describe scrubbing, so here are a bunch of pictures taken during the process:
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When I thought I had scrubbed enough, I wiped off all the residue, cleaned the entire exterior with Hoppe's, and went outside to get a couple of pictures in natural light.
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I liked the way it looked, so all the various pieces were moved from the outside to the inside, and a set of stocks was put on for the trademark HomeSmith blue shop towel picture:
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With this gun I only used the maroon pads #7447. When I work on the next one, I'll do a pass with 7447 and then repeat the process with the next step finer, the grey #7445 pads. I'm not sure when that will be, but I'll post about it when the time comes.
Working with stainless steel is fun and compared to rust bluing it almost feels like cheating because I can see the results right now instead of 8 rust cycles later. We'll be doing more of this.