DFBeck

I have an Eclipse Pro Target II in which the sides are stainless but milled in such a way that what appears to be a heavily brushed surface runs parallell with the barrel on the side of the slide and the flat sides of the receiver. Somehow I have acquired a series of scratches that have no particular direction. The scratches are limited to an area about one inch long and about one half inch in heigth.

I have polished a stainles steel Ruger before but since there didn't seem to be any pattern to the original polish, it didn't make any difference how it was buffed out. On this Kimber, I'm afraid that if I start to buff these scratches out, I'm going to end up with two different appearances unless I polish the entire stainless surface. Hopefully this makes sense. I don't know if the EPTII is the only Kimber with this design.

I have seen suggestions before on using 600 grit paper on stainless ( which still seems a bit rough) but at least I could keep the pattern(?) going the same direction.

The buffing I had done on the Ruger and a 640 S&W was with a 6 inch wheel using either rouge or white compound. Either of these compounds is sure to leave a near mirror finish that would cause me to have to polish the entire gun.

I'm the only one that handles these guns and I have no idea how these scratches got on the slide unless there was something inside the holster.

Also, I've done auto body work and even wet it seems that 600 grit seems a bit course.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Schlamoo

You may try some 3M Scotchbrite products. Find a industrial cutting tool supply house in your area, a place that sells machine shop supplies. Scotchbrite is the stuff you would find on sponges where they have the sponge on one side and the green scrubbing/scouring pad on the other. The green is Scotchbrite, coarse. They make the stuff from extre fine to coarse different colors for the different "grits". 3M also makes wheels in many different styles that are a very hard woven nylon type that has diffent grades or grits. You can get items that will polish all the way up to aggressive metal removal like a stone grinding wheel. Various sizes are available from Dremel up to large bench grinder. Call around and find a 3m distributor who knows the products well, stay away from the regular hardware stores as they won't stock a wide variety, and don't have the training to recommend the right item. Good luck.

DFBeck

That's the info that I was looking for. I knew that I could get the scratches out but not without causing a mismatch.
Thanks a lot
Dave B