A Brassy Attitude

Being new to me, one of the first things I did to my Kentucky Rifle was take it completely apart for cleaning and inspection.  Turns out, it didn't really need the former, and it passed the latter with flying colors.  One of those colors though happened to be a dull yellow.  When I said the worst part of this gun was the tarnished brass, I wasn't kidding.  Polishing metal being one of those things that I inexplicably enjoy, I had to take care of it.  It didn't really seem all that tarnished until I started polishing.  Some of the castings(particularly the trigger guard) were a bit rough so I filed/sanded as necessary before polishing.  To buff them up, I used my trusty bench grinder with a buffing wheel and some Jewelers Rouge.  The difference just a few minutes of buffing can make is astonishing.  Here are just a few samples:

At the end of an afternoon, my buffing wheel was thoroughly loaded with brass: