I bought a Taurus 686 for a truck gun, intending to leave it in the truck all the time. The gun (and it seems most stainless guns today) came in with what they are calling a "satin" finish. Honestly, It's no better finish than the Caspian "in-the-white" 1911 frame I have.
I prefer polished stainless for guns and, since the Taurus will be a truck gun, bouncing around, etc., and it's low cost, I figured I would try my hand at polishing it before tacking the Caspian for which I will care more about the results.
I wish I had taken pictures of the Taurus before I started but I didn't. What I did was watch hours of videos of stripping and polishing revolvers. Oddly, all of the videos I found to start showed hand-polishing only so I figured that was the way to go and that's what I've been doing:
I sanded with first 600 then 800 then 1000 and then 2000 sandpaper. Then using Mother's to polish by hand with lots of old t-shirt rags, etc. I wasn't getting the results I wanted on some areas though I seemed to be on others and so I went back to 600, 800, 1000, 2000, and then 3000 grit sand paper and back to the Mothers.
I am doing something right because some parts are getting to the finish I want but, doing what I've been doing, I have about 4 hours of polishing, and am guessing it will take more than 40 hours to get the results I want - if I ever get there over all of the gun.
And watching more videos while I polished, Now I have discovered videos from pros using buffing wheels and appropriate ranges of buffing sticks/wheels to get great results in very short order. One pro took an old, rusted blued revolver and stripped it to bare polished metal with absolutely amazing results.. I would love to get anything close to that. Of course he went on to blue that one because it isn't stainless.
So, long story long I guess, views on hand polishing versus wheel polishing? Is it normal to have 40 hours in polishing a small revolver or am I just that bad at it? It seems I could get all that I need to polish the gun with a wheel system for about $300 from Eastwood.
I prefer polished stainless for guns and, since the Taurus will be a truck gun, bouncing around, etc., and it's low cost, I figured I would try my hand at polishing it before tacking the Caspian for which I will care more about the results.
I wish I had taken pictures of the Taurus before I started but I didn't. What I did was watch hours of videos of stripping and polishing revolvers. Oddly, all of the videos I found to start showed hand-polishing only so I figured that was the way to go and that's what I've been doing:
I sanded with first 600 then 800 then 1000 and then 2000 sandpaper. Then using Mother's to polish by hand with lots of old t-shirt rags, etc. I wasn't getting the results I wanted on some areas though I seemed to be on others and so I went back to 600, 800, 1000, 2000, and then 3000 grit sand paper and back to the Mothers.
I am doing something right because some parts are getting to the finish I want but, doing what I've been doing, I have about 4 hours of polishing, and am guessing it will take more than 40 hours to get the results I want - if I ever get there over all of the gun.
And watching more videos while I polished, Now I have discovered videos from pros using buffing wheels and appropriate ranges of buffing sticks/wheels to get great results in very short order. One pro took an old, rusted blued revolver and stripped it to bare polished metal with absolutely amazing results.. I would love to get anything close to that. Of course he went on to blue that one because it isn't stainless.
So, long story long I guess, views on hand polishing versus wheel polishing? Is it normal to have 40 hours in polishing a small revolver or am I just that bad at it? It seems I could get all that I need to polish the gun with a wheel system for about $300 from Eastwood.