I have prepped guns for bluing without a wheel and they were very shiney. I used progressively finer grits of emory paper starting with about 400 going to 1000. 'I shoe shined' the round areas like barrel, etc and used a piece of window glass on the bench with the emory cloth on it and moved the flat parts on the emory. I prepared the parts for this stage with a fine file to remove knicks before polishing. I didn't round off any flats or eliminate any of the lettering like it so often done by someone in a hurry on the wheel. Try it on an area under the grips, see how it works for you. Wish I had a digital camera........