How to polish my 1974 Peacemaker .22 CCH frame?

[nfafan]

Hello all,

I picked up a lightly-used '74 (per S/N G112768) Peacemaker. Despite it's light use, it did see plenty of handling; yellowed Jay Scott "Ivrylites", small pits on the bluing here and there - and; a dull finish to the CCH frame.

My question; how to get some shine back to the CCH frame. Does the CCH "finish" go into the metal itself, so that it could take some serious Dremal polishing? Or - is this a fake CCH, surface treated only?

I tried some Liquid Wrench on rags - took some surface grunge off. Then I tried wax on the CCH, meh. Then tried Tung Oil in several coats on the CCH in the hopes that it would "build up" and gloss over the dullish look - no good.

Again, I figure if the CCH is the metal itself, I'll try some Super Wenol on a Dremel buffer.

Thanks!

[Kid Sopris]

Don't take a dremel to the frame...It's brilliance is already gone and you are not making it better. Leave well enough alone or you will be truly sorry..

[dfariswheel]

Color case hardening is VERY thin and VERY fragile.
ANY polishing at all will only damage it or remove it.

Some options to make it shine:
Apply a coat of a good wax like Johnson's Paste wax or Renaissance Hard Carnuba wax. This will not only protect it, it will give it some shine. NO CAR WAX. These often contain abrasives to polish paint and can damage gun finishes.

A second option is one that was often used by manufactures to protect delicate case colored parts and that was to apply a coat of a varnish to the frame. This not only protected the colors it made it shiny.
Today you might experiment with a sprayed on thin coat of a high gloss polyurethane or a lacquer. Keep it thin and keep it ONLY on the exposed surface to avoid gumming up the works.

As above, if you start using ANY polishing product you'll be sorry, because the coloring is so delicate and so thin.
This is one of those things you leave alone, or you further ruin.

[nfafan]

Thanks all, guess I'll leave well enough alone. I would have thought real CCH (assuming that is what a Colt has) was "into" the metal, and not just on the surface.

[peacemaker]

Thanks all, guess I'll leave well enough alone. I would have thought real CCH (assuming that is what a Colt has) was "into" the metal, and not just on the surface.

COLOR - CASE HARDENING

Relatively speaking, the case hardening goes much deeper than the color, though the hardening is not deep at all. That should give you some idea about how thin the color is.

[dfariswheel]

There's a difference between case hardening and COLOR case hardening.
Case hardening is simply a way to give steel a thin "crust" of almost glass hardness to prevent wear of the part, but to leave it soft and durable inside.
Just by looking at a part there's no way to tell it's case hardened since the appearance of the metal doesn't change.

COLOR case hardening is a method of giving steel a thin crust of hardness to prevent wear AND give the metal a nice mottled color for appearance sake.
The case hardening penetrates into the metal slightly, but the colors are only on the surface.
While the hardening is permanent and very durable, the colors can be easily damage by wear, chemicals, sunlight, handling, or polishing.
Color cased gun parts will show wear of the colors rather quickly and as a "finish" for guns, it's the least durable and most easy to damage. It provides virtually no protection against rust since it's basically bare steel.