Joe Wood
I'm at odds with some of the advice given here & I'll admit to being an amateur w/o any professional training but in my experience:
1. To avoid washing out & dulling the engraving cuts you need to do the majority of the polishing with something like wet or dry abrasive paper backed by something very firm like a flat rubber eraser or a leather faced piece of wood. You can find suitable 800 through 2500 grit paper in auto supply stores.
2. You will need something soft to clean up the bottom of the engraving cuts & you will want to use this very minimially to avoid washing out the cuts. Mirilon is a product much like Scotch Brite but finer & can be found in wood working stores. The gray Mirlon scuff pad = 1500 grit & the Gold Mirlon pad = 2500 grit.
3. A very good polishing job & caustic salts hot blue will look nice but it won't look exactly like a charcoal blue. Given the minimal expense of having just the trigger guard reblued I would opt for a charcoal blue if the rest of the gun is in good shape & you want it to look "correct".
4. Avoid a buffing wheel like the plague unless you have lots & lots of experience ( this I agree with).
Just my $.02 & hopefully some of our professional gunsmiths & or engravers will chime in in here on the best way to proceed with the polishing.
