Another brought back

[RoninPA]

Here's another State Corrections Police Service Six brought back to life. This one was also heavily marked by a ham handed corrections person with an electric engraving pencil. The first one I did was a .38 Spl, this one was a .357 Mag, so I now have a matching pair.

 

[4kdave]

Really nice pair ! ----did I say that????

 

[Knuckles]

Very Nice!

 

[Bountyhunter]

That turned out real sweet! Would you be at all interested in giving it to me?

 

[Gunut]

Looking good , nice job.

 

[Rugerhunter]

NICE!!!

would like to hear about the process etc....

 

[RoninPA]

Bountyhunter - Uh, NO!

The sequence of events (and this is for both):
After it arrived I completely (everything except the firing pin) dismantled it and put the pieces in my ultrasonic cleaner for an hour. I used a commercial cleaner degreaser called EXCEL CLEAN HD. Then they got dried. Wrapped the cylinder in masking tape and used a hobby knife to cut out the tape from the flutes. Took the pieces to my blast cabinet and blasted them with 120 grit aluminum oxide. I ran a bolt up throught the cylinder and centered the cylinder and secured it. Then it got chucked in my drill press and I polished it with successively finer wet/dry auto body sand paper until it looked like I wanted it. Polished the hammer, pivot pin, trigger, cylinder release, etc. with my dremel with the polishing wheels. Put it back together, wiped it down with a CLP called Weapon Shield and finished it with new (old stock) Ruger grips.

 

[Bountyhunter]

Well thanks, anyway. :lol:

 

[Three44s]

That's great work on a pair of great guns!!!

Three 44s

 

[Chris]

What a Great job you did!, we you chucked the cylinder and polished it was there any noticeable wear to the flukes ridge/end?

 

[Gregg1LE]

Fantastic job on two fine revolvers !

 

[Bear Paw Jack]

I sure like how those came out.

 

[kstoneking]

Any chance of a few 'before' pictures on the .357? Thank you.

Kenny

 

[RoninPA]

After polishing the cylinder, I did not see any noticeable rounding of the edges of the cylinder flutes or the rear of the cylinder. The face of the cylinder already has a small bevel so it was not a sharp edge to begin with. Also, I used strips of sandpaper so the only thing pressing on the cylinder was flat. I didn't use my finger to put any pressure on the sandpaper. For pressure I just held the strip, one end in each hand and applied pressure that way.

Basically this is what both of them looked like when I got them.

 

[pisgah]

As they say, a nice pair to draw to...

 

[skipper49]

What a transformation! Those turned out better than anyone had a right to expect.

Skip

 

[T.A. WORKMAN]

Smart looking set right there!
How much trouble was it removing the home grown engraving?
Terry

 

[RoninPA]

I had to be careful around the lettering as I didn't want to screw it up too bad. Then on the left side I needed to make sure I kept the edges that were square, square. I used a dremel tool with a flap sander to take as much off as I could and then switched to cratex tips to finish it. On the left side I actually put the trigger guard back on so that I could make sure it matched up with the frame. Then after blasting it you couldn't see where I had to "scrub" it.

I just couldn't believe how bad it looked with the "scribbles" on it and how just plain beat up it was. I've seen some hard used guns owned by ranchers in northwestern Colorado that didn't look that bad.