pin?
 

Hey Miles! you need to fire blue the pin in your last picture? :)... B'block to mid. toggle! work, work, work... always something to do.... GT...:cheers:

I did, it’s hard to tell in that photo.

nice job!
 

I'm just teasing you Miles! You did a great job... pretty impressive your attention to detail, and then recreating the process.... you only need more Lugers?... :) .. best to you, til...lat'r...GT....:cheers:

Well I decided I couldn’t live with the dip blue finish anymore...

I was able to remove most of the rust pitting and fix a lot of the buffing damage from some previous owner.

My plan is to have Charles Danner rust blue it if he has the time.

Only thing I couldn’t do is get the rear toggle link apart.
Sending that to Lugerdoc Monday.

Before and after of some damage I was able to remove.

Nice work; shows some patience and care! Well done. :)

Also an excellent picture in the first post, but "lose" the clutter in the background. ;)

Excellent work! I greatly enjoy sprucing up shooters, and really appreciate it when other collectors show their work on such projects. Can you share with us your techniques for planing down the surface to remove the buffing and pitting? I have a 1906 Portuguese M2 that I am thinking of 'improving' further along the lines of what you are doing to to this pistol.

I've had Charles reblue some items for me and his work is always top notch. In discussing refinishing prep with him, he says that on a high quality refinish, the real work is in preparing the surface (as you are doing).

Great work on your part. I feel certain that this is going to be a "beautiful shooter" after C. Danner gets through with it. I can't wait to see the final product!! :biggulp:

4 Scale,

I have never done this type of thing before so I'm sure there are better methods than mine.
All I did was tape 325 grit sand paper to a flat wood block and sanded out all the damage.

One thing that helped me a ton was having a mint 1917 DWM to examine and figure out the direction all the parts should be grained.
For example, the sanding direction changed half way up on the front of the trigger guard.
Having the example to copy was invaluable.

I was able to get the toggle apart by driving the small retaining pin out with a big hammer.
It had some pitting that I left because I didn't want to get it out of shape.

Sent the whole thing to Mr. Danner this morning, I will post some photos when it's finished.

It’s finished! Just need to replace the front sight when I can.

Couldn’t be happier with Mr. Danner’s work! He even polished the inside of the frame white for me. 5 day turn around time and amazingly low price. Can’t say enough good things about him!!!

I think the word WOW!!! gets my point across. What an improvement over your starting point. I would be thrilled to have that Luger in my safe. :cheers: