Steve, you have a gift of patience for making things go clean and shiny!
How old are those pliers likely to be?
I love the breaking the $100 story. Quirky people are excellent.
Your pliers remind me, I have a pair of parallel pliers which are gucky and unsmooth. I feel inspired to try again to breather new life into them. What does the Steve Treatment entail. Trigh Flough?