Thanks for the get well wishes from both of you Bedbugbilly and Hawg.
Back improved a little yesterday so I was able to get out in my shop and do a little work on the Remy. The area most rusted that you could see in the pics I first posted, was on the left and just forward on the frame in front of the cylinder, was pitted pretty badly and I had to actually use a jeweler's file to remove that rust and pits as well as careful sanding to remove the file marks. A few dings and pits on some of the barrel flats too that I carefully had to file and sand out. Had to be very careful not to file the edges of the barrel flats.
No other rust anywhere else, but the chemical etching from where someone had chemically removed the bluing was deeper into the metal than I thought at first so after filing out those above pits and rust, I had to wet sand a lot all over the surface of the entire revolver to remove most of the visible chemical etching. Because I tried just buffing the etching out, but it was too deep so it had to be sanded out before buffing.
I completely disassembled the revolver and punched out the loading lever catch from its dovetail to remove the arbor so I could polish the arbor too. On the Uberti you can punch the front sight and loading lever catch out of their dovetails easily. On the Pietti they are soldered into depressions in the barrel. I like this feature better on the Uberti since it is easier to just drift the loading lever catch and front sight out of their dovetails and then tap them back in rather than having to torch heat the loading lever catch and front sight to remove them on the Pietta and then solder them back on. That's a lot of hassle with the Pietta. For this reason alone I like the Uberti Remy better than the Pietta Remy. Plus I think the Uberti is just a tad better in quality and fit. It's worth the extra money for an Uberti, (even though I got a steal of a deal on this one which wasn't the normal price on an Uberti with conversion cylinder).
After removing the pits on the left of the frame with the jeweler's file and wet sanding that area and the entire frame with 220 grit wet/dry sandpaper, then 600 grit, I then spent about an hour carefully buffing out the frame and cylinder on my buffing wheel using medium buffing rouge. I didn't sand nor buff the loading lever and trigger guard yet but set those aside and will do those later since they will be easy to do and my primary interest was getting the larger pieces of frame, barrel and cylinder free of rust, pits and chemical etching marks.
After brush cleaning off the red medium buffing rouge with acetone, I can still see some little areas of the etching still showing through my 1st initial buffing job. So I might have to sand a little more and then probably buff it several more times with the medium red rouge plus a final buffing or two with the fine grit white rouge, til I get it to where it is mirror like the way I want.
My friend who does professional painting and hydroprinting on guns, told me to get a can of Moly K.G gunkote in clear. He said that will clear coat the revolver with a hard clear epoxy finish that won't blow off from the cylinder in the barrel to cylinder gap area nor the front of the barrel. The finish dries so epoxy hard, it can only be removed by sandblasting. That's exactly the finish I need. After getting it and trying it on my Remy, if it does well, I'm going to use it on my highly polished "in the white" 1917 snubby barrel S&W too.
Here's some pics of the Remy filed, sanded and buffed as it is right now minus the screws, internal parts, loading lever, trigger guard, trigger and hammer. (Trigger and hammer are casehardened and don't need any work done on them).
Scroll up to my first post and compare these "today" pics with my earlier posted "before" pics. Notice the 3rd pic of my first post and that shows the worse rust pitted area the best. That's the area that was the worst that I had to jeweler file and sand the most. Quite an improvement now. It will be even better after some more sanding and buffing followed by the clear moly K.G. gunkote application.
I was even thinking of doing something else to it that I've done before on another gun. There is this rub on powder/paste available at the craft store you can get in various metallic colors. I was thinking of MAYBE (not sure yet) rubbing the gold powder/paste on the cylinder and clear coating over that. Then when finished the revolver would look like either nickel or highly polished stainless with a gold plated cylinder, with a clear epoxy finish over everything, which would lock in the gold on the cylinder and it would never degrade nor flake off. Might try that, not sure yet, but leaning that way.
I'll keep you all posted on the progress. (as my back permits! Lol).
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