Making the look of grain on a slide?

[N6CRV]

Hello, I hope that I can explain this so it makes sense. I have a parkerzied gun that I had Black oxided. It was done right over the Park. It came out a real nice black, but for one side of the slide. The slide must of fell over in the basket that was used because one side had what looked like the basket weave in the finish. So was going to just do it over but thought I better remove the bad spot. Well I ended up cleaning both sides of the slide. I did do a fast job but thought it would be fine. Here is a picture of what I got when it was redone.
http://webpages.charter.net/n6crv/Bslide.jpg
If you notice where the word Armory is it is kind of flat and looks like it was not polished. The back side looks worse then the front. Well I have gone over both sides with 3000 grit sandpaper, crocus cloth and then buffed it. The front side came out ok but for two spots. The back has alot of "flat" spots but I believe they are in the metal and well never come out. I kind of like the polished bare metal. Question is do I reoxide it and hope for the best or try to go over the sides with a Sotchbrite pad and try to give it what looks like a grain the oxide? Or leave it with the bare metal polished and just keep it well oiled?
Thanks for taking the time to read this long post.
Don

[Hunter]

One option which may be your best is to have a gunsmith do a hot blue job on the entire pistol. He will strip it down to bare metal and start over. Any imperfections will be removed and your 1911 will look brand new. My thoughts anyway.

[John]

If there are imperfections to the metal, the blueing will not cover them. Depending on how the slide looks (and the above picture is too dark to judge), either your gunsmith will have to do a lot of polishing (or even milling) of the flats to remove the imperfections, or he can give the gun a bead blasting, which will come out dull, flat black after the blueing. The flat black won't show the imperfections as much as the polished one, but it also wears of more easily.