Info I hope might help anyone wanting to enhance a Rodeo's matte blue finish.
If you have not done much with steel or a revolver in particular it is a little more difficult and time consuming to do right than one would think. And easier to wreck a nice gun when done wrong or in a hurry. Five hours work when someone knows what they are doing.
If not and you are new to metal and you have a Rodeo a good place to start with little risk of harm is a Birchwood Casey Lead Remover & Polishing Cloth. Taking your gun back down to polished steel will be some effort and time. But the mild abrasives in the cloth won't hurt any thing if the polishing is done by hand.
I used the B-C cloth to first antique one of my Rodeos not concerned about polishing for a nice reblue or refinish. Remember blue and color case will hide/cover a multiple of sins in metal work, matte nickel less and bright nickel even less.
first antiqued
then engraved
another pair I antiqued to a lesser extent, leaving some blue, but not the "black gun" Rodeo look. Again done with a B-C cloth, taking about an hour or so per gun, starting with the gun in pieces but always with the
barrel still attached to the frame. I am hoping to eventually have these engraved as well.
And the end result of that amount of polishing....and a "antique blue finish"? I intentionally used a antique blue finish to mast the lack of metal prep/polish on this pair of Rodeos I shoot almost daily. What I didn't do on the metal polish the blueing and engraving cover the majority of it up.