Nickel finishes - curious about pits in them

[peterdeb]

I'm just curious, is there anyway very small pits in a nickel finish can be fixed. I know you can reblue spots with oxpho-blue. Is there anything on the market for factory nickel finish. Or does it boil down to just polish then wax, trying to minimize the look.

 

[Alk8944]

You can't "fix" a Nickel finish. The only thing that can be done is to have it re-finished by de-plating and re-plating. Other than that you can polish the gun and wax it, but the improvement will be "spotty".

 

[22hipower]

Not much you can do with pits. Corrosion will come off, sometimes, pitting is forever. If it's minor, wax it and ignore it. If you can't stand looking at it sell it. Refinishing is an option but expensive and I've never been very happy with the results. Good luck.

Jeff
SWCA #1457

 

[Vtgw938]

You can soak the nickel parts in Metal Rescue and it will remove all rust. The pits should be silver, the color of the steel when your done. Gun needs to be stripped and all blued, flash chromed or case hardened parts left alone. I give all my nickel and stainless gun (parts) a bath. It has worked for me.

 

[stansdds]

There is no touch-up for plating, so it's either live with it, try to polish it, or pay the big bucks and have it completely refinished. Refinishing destroys the original finish and can decrease the value of the firearm.

 

[two-bit cowboy]

If you can't stand looking at it sell it.

I'm not a huge fan of nickel and only have a handful of nickel Chiefs,
just to represent that variation.

I reached the "sell it" point with the only nickel one I've had with
the black plague. A real shame because it was a cool one. NO regrets.

 

[rct269]

"Wiregrassguy" speaks highly of an Alabama outfit (gunsmithing and refinishing/plating)---touch base with him for the particulars (which escape me at the moment).

If their everyday work is anything like they show on their website, it'll be impressive!

As an aside, guns prepared by stripping leave you with the same base as was the factory's (leaving only unfortunate dings to be dealt with before (re) finishing)----clearly the name of the game!

Ralph Tremaine

 

[peterdeb]

Thanks for all your answers. I will clean them up and live with them. I saw them in person and they are not bad at all. I have no intention of re-finishing the pistol.

 

[SGT ROCK 11B]

I leave them be.