This early (1913) Commercial Colt has been chosen as a featured project mainly due to its very bad striation problem (see below) on the frame, and because it shows literally tens of thousands of small dings, pits, scratches and punch marks. This pistol had almost no original finish and showed very rough handling dings end-to-end. A few of the small parts, such as the thumb-safety, were in good shape. The grips were fairly good, surprisingly, but showed enough wear that they wouldn't look very good on a fully restored pistol.

This pistol had a Springfield military barrel, a post-1916 magazine, and a 1945-style flat hammer. The barrel and magazine change are fairly easy to imagine, but what happened to the hammer?

Certain parts on antique (pre-WWI) firearms such as Winchester receivers, Colt backstraps , 1911 frames, Smith & Wesson frames, and other “drop-forged” parts are likely to show very thin, wavy “lines” that appear to be etched into the steel. These 'lines' might appear to be scratches to those not familiar with striations, but are a much worse condition.

Striations are caused by the separation of alloys in early, non-homogenous steels approximately up to World War I when steelmaking improved markedly. It is in the actual process of drop-forging, while the steel is white-hot, that this separation first occurs. Milled and other machined parts do not seem to be affected very often, since they are formed while the steel is cold.

If you look closely at the side flats on almost any early Winchester receiver (just as one example), there will most likely be some evidence of striations, even on original-finish pieces. They appear whether the receiver is blued or case-hardened. Virtually every early drop-forged part from any manufacturer of the period will exhibit striations.

Striations worsen over time as separation of alloys from iron continues. There may be only a few faint lines on the sides of the receivers, or there may be literally hundreds, varying in length, depth and thickness from area-to-area.

Striations also seem to worsen if extreme amounts of polishing are needed to remove pitting, etc. No amount of polishing will actually remove striations, since they are faults in the steel and go all the way thru the thickness of the piece.

Coarse-polishing, say 120 grit, will create sanding marks that cover up the striations. As polishing grits get higher and higher, the sanding marks will begin to disappear, and the striation lines will begin to be more visible. But, because there's no blue remaining for contrast, the striations will not appear to be as severe as they really are... until the gun is furnace or charcoal-blued again. Then, they pop out as white lines on the blued surface. They can be a very nasty surprise to the restorer!

Another case of worsening is where the part had been nickel-plated and is then stripped. The acids used in the stripping process will almost certainly cause more of a striation problem.

Early or antique bluing methods, such as nitre-blue and charcoal-blue, being applied at high heat, or color-case hardening at twice the bluing temperature, will cause more striation lines to show than if the part had been modern hot-blued. This is because hot-bluing actually bonds to metal, including most of the striation alloys and, being blue, are not as noticable as if they were “white”, but the striation cracks are still there. It’s a matter of picking the lesser of 2 evils: using the wrong (modern) bluing method and perhaps covering up some of the problem, or using the right method and allowing more striations to show.

It took many years before I discovered an alternate bluing process that gives almost the exact color of the original methods, and still allows the striations to be blued such that they become completely unseen. Even though this special process involves high heat (prox 750 F) the same as the original methods, a special pre-process actually blues the striations.

Scroll down to view the series of pics taken during the restoration of this 1913 Commercial Colt:

The original Colt 1913 Commercial model (left):

The original Colt 1913 Commercial model (Right):

Left frame closeup:

Right frame showing very bad striations:

Left frame showing very bad striations:

Frame sections showing condition:

Frame sections showing condition:

Frame sections showing condition:

Front of slide:

Serial number problem:

Serial number restored:

Grips:

Frame and Slide after minimal polishing:

We're now into the 'final' stages of the restoration, which includes the lettering, the remaining stages of polishing, and the final finish. The polishing is now at the 400-grit level, and this early Commercial will still have to have every part polished to 600, 1000, 1200, 1500 and 2000 grit, then a final oil-polishing to over 2000 grit. This level of polishing is as high as it gets. A military 1912 before SN 2600 would have the same polish level.

Left Frame and Slide after 400-grit polishing:

Right Frame and Slide after 400-grit polishing:

Left Frame and Slide after 600-grit polishing and lettering completed:

Left Frame and Slide new lettering:

Right Frame and Slide after 600-grit polishing and lettering completed:

Right Frame and Slide new lettering:

The 1913, ready to blue:

The following pics are the final in this series. After the bluing there were mixed results. The striations are gone from the underside of the frame, where they were present on the frontstrap, trigger guard and dust cover, as well as on the back 'ears' and surrounding areas of the backstrap.

Some striations did come back on the flats. I'd guesstimate less than 20% of the original striations did return, but are far less serious and visible. These are what were the deepest and widest and worst ones. They do have some degree of color, and are very hard to see in the following pics, but some are there.

Having removed the many thousands of small dings and scratches, and high-polished the pistol, it certainly looks a million times better. Just not perfect. This is only the 2nd time that I remember a striation problem where they re-appeared after my special bluing process.

Given the magnitude of the original problem, I suppose this gun could be called a success, but after many hours of polishing, I certainly would have been happier to see no trace of the striations.

Here are the post-bluing and post-assembly pics:

Left frame:

Right Frame:

Right frame Close-up:

Assembled; full left side:

Assembled; left side close-up:

Assembled; Right side:

Assembled; Right-side close-up: