Refinishing Milled Scotty

I recently discovered the massive number of putter restoration threads and have been inspired to try one of my own. I bought a used Scotty Cameron Monterey on eBay that should be arriving today. I have a pretty good idea on which direction I want to go as I am in lover with kmac02576's blackened Laguna. One thing I've not seen while reading through the threads is how to address the face. Is there a way to keep the milling or should I sand off? The face appears to be in good shape with what appears to be some rusting. I would like to keep mailing if possible. Any ideas on how to proceed with this? Thanks!

Don't sand the milling off. From the face pic, looks like all you need to do is clean up the leading edge of the top line. There is a honey finish that you should strip off before blackening - the DIYers here will have suggestions on that.

Sanding is definitely plan B. Is there a way to restore the face without remilling or sanding?

I would expect that removing the existing finish will likely remove what you describe as rust on the face. When the rest of the world wakes up this morning you will have plenty of input. If you decide to send it out, pm me.

So I've sanded out most of the major dings and dents; however, I am unsure how to tackle the milled face. Is there anything I can do to refinish or at least minimize the nicks? I am now leaning towards sandblasting as the final finish. Would aluminum oxide give more texture than glass beads to potentially minimize the face imperfections?

You could send it out for remilling

Personally, I would live with the imperfections in the face. You gotta remember that the only way to get a hole out is to drop the material around it so it doesn't stick out. You can't do that and preserve the milling. As TR mentioned above ^^^ you could grind the milling out and re-mill it but then you're going to lose a lot of material and change the head weight. You could add heavier weights, but whether that would be enough or in the right place to balance out the material you take from the face you won't know until you've done the process. Consider them "character marks." The cavity sure looks great after the work you put in already!

BTW, you can use a sand or media blast lightly on the face. A skilled hand can even out the general look of the milling without blasting it too hard and losing the relief. Won't take the big dings out, but will create a more uniform look.

I wouldn't touch the face. Anything you do to it is taking a step backwards.

When I refinish I only sand the face enough to remove the oxidation to get an even finish when torching otherwise it will turn out a different look than the rest of the putter. I use 2000 wet sand and then 2000 regular dry sand then polish to remove any oxidation. Most important step is spotless clean surface before finishing 90% alcohol cleaned 3 times.

to me it looks awesome as is... I wouldn't touch the face. Could turn out to be a Meg Ryan.... hot to not.

Thanks to all for the advice. I ended up beadblasting with 40/70 glass at 90 psi. Here is the final product.

And another.

And the face?

Removing the honey dip finish helped, but couldn't do much else for it.

[quote name='ryanbormann' timestamp='1446322640' post='12533720']
Removing the honey dip finish helped, but couldn't do much else for it.
[/quote]
Looks good! All the browning is gone.