Repairing damage to Beretta's finish?

[ScottRiqui]

I bought a used Beretta 84BB. The overall condition is great, particularly the finish. The only blemish is that it appears the gun was dropped at one point, "smooshing" the lines in the back of the grip and scraping off a section of the bluing:

I was thinking of using a small triangular file to "re-cut" the affected areas of the grooves and then hitting it with some cold blue. The repair doesn't have to be perfect - I just don't want the dinged-up section to stand out as much as it does.

Does this sound workable, or am I asking for trouble?

 

[Bill DeShivs]

That's not bluing-it's anodizing. The frame is aluminum.
You can probably touch it up with gloss paint after you straighten out the grooves.

 

[ScottRiqui]

And THIS is why I wanted to ask here before I got started - thanks, Bill!

 

[Creeper]

The file as you mentioned, plus a bit of 600 wet/dry on a square dowel to smooth things out... then some Birchwood Casey "aluminum black" or maybe their general purpose touch-up pen.

It's aluminum, so don't forget to frequently clean the chips out of the file with a wire brush.

Cheers,
C

 

[dahermit]

Filing will remove the metal. You might want to try reforming the ridges with a small triangular punch by working the metal back where it was, before filing.

 

[ScottRiqui]

Filing will remove the metal. You might want to try reforming the ridges with a small triangular punch by working the metal back where it was, before filing.

Did I mention that they called me "Shakes the Clown" during flight school?

Honestly, I'll probably have better luck with just re-cutting the damaged parts of the grooves and leaving the flattened portions as-is, or possibly even flattening all of the ridge ends to make them uniform before re-finishing it.

 

[Creeper]

or possibly even flattening all of the ridge ends to make them uniform before re-finishing it.

As it's not a custom or collector grade gun... chances are, I'd do the same thing. Mini-bobtail?

 

[wyop]

I'm with dahermit. When I see a ding/dent/divot in gun metal like that, I first try to put the metal back where it came from.

Once you hit it with a file, it's gone forever.

If the attempts to move the metal back don't succeed, then I start to filing/polishing it out.