Actually, everything was done by hand. The cylinder was done on a flat machinists block with 600 grit sandpaper stuck to it. Then to 800 grit sandpaper, and then to 1200 grit. Then it was carefully hand polished with Flitz metal polish on pure cotton tight weave fabric stretched over a machinists block.
A buffer or buffing wheel is a no no with cylinders, as you do not want to touch, modify, or round off the timing stops on the cylinder. Everything has to be kept as flat as possible. A dremel and conical buffer was used for the flutes on the cylinder.
The trigger guard was done all by hand starting with 600 grit sandpaper, 800 grit and then 1200 grit. Close attention was kept during sanding around any edges as to not round them off too much. Stubborn casting flaws were sanded with 440 grit first to save time. After the final sanding with 1200 grit, the trigger guard was then polished by hand with Flitz metal polish. A small dremel buffing wheel was used with white compound around the bottom of the trigger guard (only non mission critical parts) to save a little time, only where keeping a sharp edge is of no concern.
After some machining and filing on the frame to straighten some things out, the entire frame was sanded with 600 grit sandpaper by hand with 1 or 2 fingers until all metal flaws were eliminated. Then a once over with 1200 grit paper, and it was ready for the bead blasting. I'm pretty sure I didn't need the fingerprints on my fingers anyways. I wonder if they will grow back?
No magical easy way around a quality job. It takes time every night working on a project like this. And the time sure does add up when you work on a pistol for a few months. I honestly have no idea exactly how much time I have in this pistol. I probably don't even want to know!
There was tons of little steps in between, but that pretty much sums it up.