A big part of why I was busy today: project gun update

That's the Sistema .45 I've been working on. All the big stuff is done, so today I parkerized it.

Before:
After:
Came out pretty well. Soon as it was dry and hard I soaked it with a good oil. Then I remembered what Xavier once wrote about treating parkerizing, and found the post. I think I'll try the same on this one.

At this point I've done the following:
Clean up the surface(wet/dry paper with a hard backing),
Ground the arched mainspring housing down and stippled it,
Fiber-optic front sight and a taller rear sight to match up to it,
Extended thumb safety,
Beavertail grip safety(fitting that was fun),
New hammer & barrel,
Long trigger,
and now parking it. Pretty much done.