Customing 68 classic

[Kyleb44]

ok i got a 68 classic and i strachted it up pretty bad and i now wanna take all the finsh of so its like a crome color and polish it up all nice please help

[drx975]

O boy here we go.

Since I did the same thing with my gun, Ill give you some advice.

Ok at first you need a rough sandpaper like 220 grit. Just get any old type and sand lengthwise along the body, being very careful to not scratch the powerfeed while you are sanding the mainbody, or viceversa. If you do you will create deep scratches that will show in the end quite brightly and like eyesores (to me, hehe). Also, make sure that you pay attention to tiny dimples or imperfections in the body. They are there and are in the form of dots, parallel lines close together, etc. When you sand with the 220 go hard until silver shows, then ease up and look for these dimples. If you ignore these they will show up later when you get the body looking really nice. OK thats the hard part.

Once you have that part even and the scratches going lengthwise, you need to buy the following grit sandpapers: 400, 600, 800*, 1000, 2000, 3000*(the ones with * are not necessary). These sheets MUST be wet/dry, waterproof, or some name with the same effect, and referred to as "automotive". Use these under constant water flow for 20-30 minutes at sub-1000 grits and then at 1000 and up do it for 30 minutes. Again be careful to not scratch in the wrong direction, becuase it affects the finish a lot. If you find a 3000 grit sandpaper let me know where you bought it at. Thanx and i hope this helps.

[Schnitzel]

which is the wrong direction?

[drx975]

Ok yeah that's kind of unclear....

Hold the gun in front of you, the barrel pointing to the left. Ok now you want to sand left and right(lengthwise) from this vantage point. You do NOT want to sand up and down(along the width).

.........................\ \
....----------------\ \-----------------
.....................feedtube
....------------------------------------
<---------------- and ------------------>
sand these directions on the BODY(the length of the body)

On the feed tube, sand once again along the LENGTH

When you go to sand/polish your body, it should really be obvious which direction to go in and its hard to explain without showing you. The whole point is to keep going in the same direction because this makes your gun shinier.

[SqueegeeKid]

My coworker who does alot of furniture restoration gave me some steel wool, he called it 0000 gauge. VERY FINE! That stuff worked beautiful when i got to the high grit stage. Great for buffing at the end.

That could be a good substitute for the 2000-3000 grit. The highest i found was 1600 then i used the steel wool. Looks great!

Thought that might help some, i couldn't find any super high grit paper in my area.