Haven't had time in the past several days to do very much with this project, but I did get an assortment of sandpaper, 220 grit, 400-b grit, sanding block and sand paper for my palm-sized detail sander.

I took a stab at sanding on the "back" of the bayonet frog, and took a close look at several areas of the equipment. It appears that on some elements of the equipment, the hard "patent" finish is only on one side. The non-patent side has a little white coloring on it, but no additional surface. The non-patent side would rough up quite readily.

On the "patent leather" side, the preliminary outcome is that surface seems to sand o.k., but I haven't really gotten down on it yet. I need to be able to spend a little time and employ some elbow grease to get a real sense of what will happen with some sustained sanding. I will say that I think I may have to take Artificer up on one of his suggestions, and go at it with a wire brush before sanding.

I have also ordered some Deglazer from Feibings, as PaulHenry has suggested. I may wait until that comes in, and use it on a test piece, before trying to tackle the whole project. If an application of Deglazer can strip the hard suface coating, I may be able to seriously short cut the whole process. I will post further as we go. Thanks all for your great advice. Cheers!