Project piece

[Exmilcop]

Well, I've recently acquired a rather sad long strap S&W DA in .44 Russian. It's a later piece with the serial # into the 45,000's and it's been the victim of some substandard amateur gunsmithing. You'll note that patches of the original nickel are still here and there and someone attempted to just blue over the whole thing. My plan is to see if I can find a local plating place to reverse the electrolysis process and get back to bare steel. There's a well regarding gunsmith who'll do the reblue if I do all the prep work. At least the pearl grips are in good shape. Someone tried to fix the force off by dickering around with the sear so now, in single action, it'll "stutter", meaning if you do a slow pull the hammer will pause and then gently fall while the trigger springs back into its normal position. If you pull through that stutter, it's OK though.

 

[wlw-19958]

Hi There,


There are other ways to remove nickel plating besides reverse
plating. I have removed nickel plating with bead blasting. It
can be removed by buffing and other abrasive processes.


Cheers!
Webb

 

[rct269]

I'd be inclined to remove plating by "reverse plating", and the blue by striping. That should take you down to bare metal for the polishing.

Ralph Tremaine

"polishing"-------??

On the other hand, you mentioned bead blasting, and I just passed right by it with my brain in neutral. Glass bead peening makes for a very nice, uniform finish------and it does it rather quickly-----and easily---been there---done that---not with a gun, but.

 

[Incendiary]

I have tried reverse electrolysis on a nickeled antique cylinder. It ended up eating some of the metal, not just the nickel finish. My understanding is pretty basic but I believe this was due to the metallurgic makeup of the antique cylinder. With modern “known” alloys it’s much safer to use this process, the way I understand it.

I would vote for use of gentle abrasive or bead blasting to remove the existing nickel.

 

[gwpercle]

Whatever you do ... don't shorten the barrel ...

That barrel length just looks right ...

Nice looking project gun ... I Like It !
Gary