What do I do with it now?

[madbrad]

Ok so I bought one of those High Seas Derringers from Navy Arms in .36 cal, and it was ugly the brass finish looked cheep and so did the wood and the ring on the barel which I primptly knocked off) So I decided to wear down the shiny finish and see how it looked. When I started lightly sanding the metal I saw what looked like copper under the finish so I kept polishing and there is steel under that. So now I think I will try to get it down to the metal and refinish but, now I don't know how I want to rebuild it any ideas or directions I can head in with this project?

 

[Story]

Make a cutlass-pistol?

Stylin' flintlock repro [url] http://www.knifecenter.com/knifecenter/cas/images/1052-G.jpg[/url]

Elgin original[url] http://www.nagelsguns.net/Elgin_Cutlass_Pistol.htm[/url]

A potential donor blade could be the 1860 Navy cutlass[url] http://arms2armor.com/store/product301.html[/url]

Sarco has the same knock-offs on sale for $29.50[url] http://www.sarcoinc.com/5-10-06_pgs1-06.pdf[/url]

 

[Rex B]

Take it down to the steel and apply a plum brown finish.

 

[Zonie]

A common part of plating steel is to first plate it with copper, then with the top layer of brass, gold, silver etc.
Now that you've started removing the plating, you will have to remove all traces of the copper underplating.
After the plating is removed, you can blue or brown the barrel or even leave it "in the white".

As to what to make it into, I guess you could do anything from just reassembling it with the stock it came with to buying a block of wood, forming it into a stock that you like and inletting the barrel into it.