So continuing with the saga of my Japanese made HAWES Tower pistol….
I was giving it a thorough cleaning and noticed dozens of surface casting imperfections on combination lock plate / flash pan, hammer, flint clamp and frizzen / pan cover. These parts seem to be made of fairly “soft” steel. All are in the white, with the barrel itself being very smoothly finished.
Mostly imperfections are surface dimples and irregular casting dips and seams. None of which are on pieces that would be stressed by the powder charge ignition.
I have dressed up most of these areas with files followed by progressively finer grits of sand paper down to 600 grit. It’s starting to look pretty good. I’ve had this pistol 54 years and have kept it well coated w / oil to preserve the finish. There are only a few spots of very slight tarnish, no perceivable pitting.
Now I’m thinking of ways to protect the steel from oxidation. Some sort of aesthetic coating or finish. For obvious reasons cerra-coat is not an option. Would coating with some sort of oil and mildly heating these parts aid in this regard? I know some steel can be surface case hardened but don’t know if that would help.