[forward_observer]

Is it nickel and not silver like the 2nd gens? I only own two 3rd gens. One is a walker, which has no plating, but the other in an 1849 pocket, which I got about a year ago. At first I thought the plating was silver, but began to wonder why it never tarnished like the plating on the 2nd gens tend to do. I guess I assumed they had varnished or otherwise use a silver substitute that didn't tarnish. I'm curious now.

Cheers

 

[forward_observer]

That's how I've seen a couple sellers on Gunbroker describe a 2nd gen 51 Navy. It was so tarnished they simply though the bluing was coming off since the tarnish tends to be a bit irregular.

However, I got curious and just retrieved my 3rd gen 49 pocket out of the safe---still no tarnish other than an over all yellow to purple tint around the edges. I got curious, so I removed the trigger guard and it was even more yellowish purple underneath.

I have 4 products that I use on silver. One is plain old Wrights silver creme that is sold in most grocery stores. I use that for the sterling pieces and silver plate table service that I have. I also have Semi-chrome paste and MAAS paste which I have used to polish the 2nd gen Colts when they started to tarnish badly. The last is a pure liquid chemical called Tarn-X. I use it for silver coins because it works by just dipping the coin in the liquid and then rinsing it off with water. This removes the tarnish while leaving the mint like luster on the coin. The other products are not good for coins since they remove the luster and replace it with a shine--if that makes sense.

However, not a single one of these products had any effect on the silver colored metal of the pocket 49. With the pastes there is always black residue left on the cloth from real silver, brass, or even steel. With the silver colored plating on the 3rd gen pocket 49, there was no residue on the cloth other than the paste smushed into the fabric. It simply did not react like real silver or silver plate, nor does it look quite like real silver plate. It's more artificial looking. However, it also does not look like nickel plate. The only other alternative I can think of is that it could be silver plate that has had an over-coat of some sort of protective clear polyurethane or spar varnish like manufacturers use to prevent polished brass items from tarnishing.

That might account for the weird yellow to purple tint I see in areas, which means that the plating may have turned a bit under the coating. In fact the more I think about it the more it seems likely.

Anyway, at least mine isn't flecking at the moment.

Cheers

 

[forward_observer]

@Johnmwmd,

A thought just occurred to me while looking at your photo of the flaking area. The trigger guard is supposed to be silver plated brass, but where it appears that the silver has flaked off--instead of a brass color, it looks to be grayish black much like blued steel or very tarnished silver.

I'm wondering if the spots are not from the silver flaking off, but actually from very tarnished silver where the protective coating (that I think they used) has flaked off. Then the silver underneath, being exposed to the air, might have had the chance to turn totally black. Trying a little silver polish on one of the spots might be worth the effort. If it turns silver instead of brass, then you have a much easier issue to deal with than the plating flaking off. Just polish up the exposed spots in the short term.

As I said it's just a thought based on my guess that the silver on the 3rd gens have a polyurethane or other type of protective coating, and I am certainly not well versed in the plating processes they used.

That said, proceed at your own risk.

Cheers

 

[forward_observer]

I have a 3rd 1849 Pocket that has the clear coat on the Silver plating. i was able to scratch away most of it with a fingernail. The silver underneath is fine once polished. You might want to be careful with finishes like MAAS. Great for some things (i got for old Jaguar camshaft covers) as it might be harsh on the case colors near the guard. The few times I've used it on the 2nds and the one 3rd I put tape on the frame and grips to avoid any chance of damaging the case colors. Just a precaution.

Tuco

You are quite correct about any type of polish taking off a color case hardened finish. In the case of most Italian made guns, it is done with a cynanide process rather than the old bone charcoal kiln fired method and very easy to polish off. I haven't tried in on the latter process, but I would still be wary.

I recently acquired a Pedersol model 1805 Harpers Ferry flintlock reproduction. The repro is a reasonable facimile of an original except that it is a rifled .58 caliber instead of the original smoothbore .54 cal. They have recently released a pecussion model in the correct smoothbore caliber.

The only issue I had with mine is that that all of the steel parts were in the white except the lock which comes color case hardened. From my brief research, it appears that these pistols were issued with all steel parts in the white. I had read somewhere that the case colors were fairly easy to remove with any good metal polish, so I disassembled the lock and started polishing. To my surprise the case colors came off just as easy as heavy tarnish on brass would. I sped the process a little with some 4 ought steel wool, but still the whole job took me about an hour. The hardest part was disassembling and re-assembling the lock. Luckily, i have a spring vise which helped immensely.

Here's the before and after.

This taught me to be extra careful when polishing trigger guards or back straps that are right next to a color case frame regardless of the method used to apply the case colors.

Cheers