Thank you 1982fxr! I saw another old Columbian on a different thread in this forum, a different model, that was restored and painted gray. It was an old post from back in 2009. The results were very nice!
I acquired this Columbian 603-M2 from a dear friend who passed away a few years back. It's been on my "to do list" to restore for a while now and I've decided now is the time. Actually, according to the bottom of the spindle, the Model is 603 1/2-M2, but I'm not sure how significant that is...