Kahr Slide Polishing

[MW surveyor]

OOO Shiney! Looks good and welcome to the forum.

[FLBri]

Personally, I have had good results on polished surfaces with scotch brite pads. I have a Black Rose PM9 that had several surface scratches on the top and sides. I used 600 and 1000 wet or dry paper, and than a fine scotch brite pad to finish it up. The last pass was done with gun oil on the pad and it brought back close to the mirror polish it was.

I prefer to leave it slightly less than mirror so it is easier to touch up and keep looking new. Truth be told, you can't tell the difference from the mirror finish unless you look at it up close in bright light AND magnification. Now I'm not self conscious about carrying and regretting a scratch.

On my MK9 Elite, the polished side of the slide is more of a brush finish. The Scotch Brite abrasive, used dry, is the perfect touch up. I've done the same thing on a couple Ruger revolvers that I own, and a Smith 640 (that I no longer have). It keeps them looking perfect!

By the way ... don't be tempted to use steel wool. It makes a great abrasive but it gets very fine particles literally everywhere and its very difficult to get them all out of the small parts.

[CJB]

Polishing metal is something I know a little something about.... from my years working with mold makers who knew nothing about guns, but who could cut and finish metal like gangbusters. We were a match made in heaven.

You can blast - sand, glass bead (round), ground glass, garnet, silicon oxide, etc etc. The thing that sets in my mind about blasting is the fine finishes, like bead blasting or ground glass blasting will be easily marred with casual contact, while heavy finish like garnet or sand blasting will leave a coarse more mar resistant finish. All blasted finishes hold dirt. They all show scratches like crazy. They're good to "dull" the shine, and to cover minor imperfections in a machined finish. Those imperfections would need to be removed in order to get a bright or fully shiny finish that looked even.

You can buff - to a luster or to a full shine. Full shine - mirror shine - is brutal for any scratches or fingerprints. Everything shows - like having a black car paint job.

Then there's the brushed finish - showing some marks. Also called the Pittsburgh finish. This can be achieved by sanding, grinding, or carding (a form of sanding). It hides imperfections, and tends to minimize the effect of scratches that occur later on.

On the Pittsburgh finish - if I were to do a Kahr slide, I'd use 400 paper wrapped on an art (big pink) eraser. That would remove the blast finish from the flats. Its important to use a sanding block (the eraser). Then... I'd go find a carding wheel from a place like Brownells, and get a rather coarse one. Carding is used to remove rust, but a coarse wheel will impart a nice Pittsburgh finish. You can mount that in a drill press, and run the slides flats along the edge of the wheel (flapper wheel with sanding stuff on it). You'll get a nice even finish that way. Do both sides, mask the flats and then blast the top for reduction of glare.

Anyway... hope ya all found that interesting an'useful

[Bug Splat]

Bug Splat, welcome to KahrTalk!

I really like that look where you've just done the slide flats. How about the extractor side, did you remove the extractor before doing the polishing?

Thanks...

Thanks for the warm welcome. I wish I had more pictures to show. I did remove the extractor and every part of the slide and frame before polishing. I polished the extractor, slide release and every part of the barrel using a dremal with cotton wheel and the same car wax.

[BrewerGeorge]

...
By the way ... don't be tempted to use steel wool. It makes a great abrasive but it gets very fine particles literally everywhere and its very difficult to get them all out of the small parts.

Lots of stainless is used in breweries, so I know a little bit about the care and feeding of it...

+1 on the steel wool. That's made from mild steel and will imbed particles of mild steel in the surface of the stainless. The mild steel will prevent the stainless from re-passivating, that is forming the protective layer of chromium oxide that keeps stainless from rusting. Then the mild steel itself will rust and make the unprotected stainless underneath rust very quickly! Once rust gets a foothold in stainless, it's not more "stainless" than regular steel.

And on the subject of re-passivating, I would not personally oil a polished stainless slide immediately after sanding or polishing. You need to give the newly-exposed surface a day or two in the air to form that protective layer. It will not rust (unless mild steel is present, of course). You can force the re-passivating by soaking in oxalic acid for a few minutes. The easiest way to get oxalic acid is to use a cleaning product called Bar Keeper's Friend. You wouldn't want to scour a polished surface with it, but a slurry or solution without rubbing would still contain the acid. After that, rinse really, really well and then oil.

[FLBri]

Now THAT is great useful information re: the oil. Thanks BG.