Preserving a sanded metal finish?

[Freespace535]

Hey all. A while ago I wet sanded the slide and some other parts on my WE 1911, just for kicks. I only had 2 or 3 grits of sandpaper, some TriFlow (I don't know if that actually did anything but it seemed to help), and the finest steel wool in all the land (literally, it was 0000 or whatever), but it came out really well. At first....

Looked kind of like this at the first finish


I just went over it again with the steel wool and tri flow, looks like this now


And from the side it is practically a mirror


Is there any way to keep it this shiny? I've done this before to random things and it gets all smudgy and dark, like so

(looks like that or even worse)

Before I touched it up most recently it was beginning to look like that.

So, what can I do to preserve the finish? Hopefully something that doesn't require expensive or dangerous chemicals and really long and difficult treatments.

**edit: Maybe its just my laptop, but you might have to scroll to the right to see the slide on the right side of the third picture. Sorry

[quigly]

I have heard of people using stuff like clear nail polish, but you can get actual metal clear coats. Check out some local hobby stores, they generally carry stuff like that for models. Also, depending on what you get, there will be different methods of application.

[DJ]

Any type of metal that is unprotected will tarnish even stainless, it just takes longer. Any type of clear coat or clear finish will wear off especially due to "holster wear". Generally speaking AS guns are not using high quality metal in their construction. If you want to maintain the pimp gun ( shiny) look just keep it polished with the 4 ought steel wool and touch it up occasionally. A buffing wheel would help with that. Brushed nickel will be the closest finish to what I see there, but =$$$. A light coating of whatever type oil you can get for free will keep it pimped up for longer and delay rust . Short of actually chrome plating it that's about it. Keeping firearms clean ,functioning and good looking is kind of the holy grail of gun maintenance. The working environment for guns is not conducive to perfect looks on guns. There are some industrial finishes ( Robar , etc...) that might give you what you desire. You would not want to pay for this on an AS gun. If I remember it was around $250 for a Robar finish job on a real Glock. Go to the Brownell's web site and check out some of their duracote finishes. Not the pimp look, but you may like what you see.