Hey Coffinmaker,
I appreciate the sentiments and the warm welcome. I'd come under the impression that my admiration for Standard Manufacturing's single actions had raised the ire of a few in this forum. I check in regularly, but I haven't posted in a long while.
Thanks for the advice on honing. The hones I bought are actually the second set I've purchased from that concern. The first ones I acquired years ago in .45 Colt. That purchase included a large bottle of honing oil, of which I still have a great amount left.
The biggest reason I never got around to treating the USFA cylinder, is that I was mulling over exactly how I would mount it in the drill press. I wanted to set everything up so that each hone spent the same amount of time and depth in each chamber and that each chamber was aligned perfectly. When I purchased the earlier .45 hones, I was trying to rescue a S&W 2nd model hand ejector that had been originally chambered in .455 but had been subsequently altered to .45 Colt. The original importer had done a very bad job. The chambers were left non-concentric and rough. Ultimately, though I smoothed the chambers well, I had no faith in the integrity of the chamber walls due to their non-concentric nature, leaving some very thin chamber walls in some areas. I ended up fitting a NOS 1980's era cylinder in .45 ACP to that revolver. That's a job I vow never to do again, as it occupied many, many hours cutting each ratchet tooth in the cylinder star with needle files just to get everything timed well. An expert would have exclaimed that one couldn't fit a 1980's cylinder to a WWI era S&W; but I managed to do it, and I ended up with a very nice action with a tight cylinder gap.
All that to say that I have some experience with cylinder honing, which is why I've held off delving into this USFA cylinder until I figured out how to set up everything just right. I don't want to enlarge the chambers--just smooth them up equally. Ideally, each pass with the hone will be of the same duration and depth with each chamber. BTW, that's an interesting suggestion about the flap sander.
Again, thanks for the warm "hello". I didn't think you liked me anymore after the exchange about Standard Manufacturing.