Mirror polishing black counter-sunk holes

[Darth Detori]

I was looking at some pictures of a BM43BLK and was thinking how cool it'd look if the counter-sunk holes were all mirror polished. Dawkind has that sweet sweet bali with mirror polished holes, and those pictures got me thinking about doing this.
So what do you think would be involved in taking off the black finish on the holes and getting them nice and shiny?

 

[McMahan]

While I’ve never actually seen the black finish in person, if you have a Dremel tool or know a buddy who does I’m sure you could find a small enough grinding and polishing bit to get the job done. The key here would be a variable speed model where you could adjust the rpm’s until you found a speed that you were comfortable working with. Ideally you would want to reach a point where you have enough power to take the finish off but not so much that it eats into the handle. The one thing you might want to think about though is that it is conceivable that some of the handle coating you didn’t want removed would chip off in the process. Anyway, hope this helps you out and good luck if you decide to go for it.

 

[Darth Detori]

yeah, I was thinking that as I own a Dremel with multiple speed settings

 

[BaliDude]

Darth, maybe you could try to chemically strip the holes, or maybe tape the handles and cut out the holes when you use the Dremel, to avoid chipping of the coating surrounding the holes.

 

[Lothar.OTHP]

Try this:

as for keeping chips at bay, my suggestion would be a very fine, small sanding drum, applied to the edges of the hole. That way, any flaking/chipping will stop at the edge where you've taken the coating off.

As for the job itself, I'd suggest using a press. Freehand is always cool, but dremel makes a press, so you can keep a straight hole, and better control. Nothing could be worse than that one time the bit grabs and spins across the handle... Use a counersunk bit, blah blah blah... or see if you can find a drill press to use. Get a countersunk bit, and find a way to apply your grits to that. I say drill press, because you can use a countersunk drill bit in reverse. AND Home Depot carries some countersinks that have a drill bit in the center (IE the countersink is a shank, and the drill bit extends from the center... a one piece hole and countersinker), which will also help with control issues.