No more grips for a while..

[Panda]

My poor old belt sander gave up it's life for this pair of Teak grips (burned out brushes). I'm not quite done with these as you'll notice. I haven't cut in the right side magazine release, but the fellas here at the office wanted to see how they turned out, so I brought them in today. I've got a good source for this 80 year old Teak, so I'm sure sure this isn't the last set I'll be making.

This will give me a chance to buy a lot nicer belt sander than what I had, so I'm not really disappointed. Maybe Santa will come across for me, but in the meantime I reckon I'll just be collecting wood samples. 

[Oldster]

Absolutely beautiful! Teak is usually stained a darker color, but I LOVE the color of these. Nice job once again Panda.

[skb875]

That is beautiful! :|
You got me interested in making my own now.
 I would give my left pinky toe for a set of bamboo grips.

[MisterNoisy]

O wow.  Those are schweet looking grips.  Sorry to hear about your belt sander, but teak's tough on all tools it would seem. 

[ntylerb1]

I would love to have a set of dark cherry oak grips like those...

[benjammin]

I'd love a belt sander, but can't justify one right now. But, I bevel my grip blanks on the tablesaw first, then shape them with a rasp and file. It doesn't take too long, and you breathe a lot less dust

[Panda]

I'd love a belt sander, but can't justify one right now. But, I bevel my grip blanks on the tablesaw first, then shape them with a rasp and file. It doesn't take too long, and you breathe a lot less dust

I'd like to see some of your grips if you have any pics. I have a large bandsaw which could serve to do some of the rough beveling, but I prefer to use a drum and\or belt sander for the initial shaping. Beyond that, everything else is Dremel tooling and hand sanding as I'm sure you also use. It's fun though, even with the dust.

I tried some Birdseye Maple last night for the first time.These will receive a Tru-Oil finish in lieu of stain, but I added another coat of stain to the Teak set. I think that's dark enough to suit Oldster:D

[benjammin]

I'd like to see some of your grips if you have any pics. I have a large bandsaw which could serve to do some of the rough beveling, but I prefer to use a drum and\or belt sander for the initial shaping. Beyond that, everything else is Dremel tooling and hand sanding as I'm sure you also use. It's fun though, even with the dust.

I tried some Birdseye Maple last night for the first time.These will receive a Tru-Oil finish in lieu of stain, but I added another coat of stain to the Teak set. I think that's dark enough to suit Oldster:D

No camera (other than a really crappy cell phone), so no pics available. I actually don't own a dremel either, so the recesses for the plunger tube and RH safety I do with a knife and chisel. Lots and lots of hand sanding though, I sand to 2000 grit and finish with boiled linseed oil on most I've done. So far 1 set in cherry and 3 in maple (it's what I had laying around), my favorite has been a set of curly maple with walnut stain before the oil. The only problem is I cut them for the ambi safety and then decided to install a LH only safety, so now I need to make another set.

A note for anyone lacking a power sander:
I make my grips from longer strips of wood, say about 2 feet, and shape the sides and top; drill the holes; and do most of the sanding before cutting them down so I have plenty of wood to hold in a vise. Then I mark the backside with them screwed to the gun, cut, sand, and finish. I also do the notch for the MSH pin before cutting to length. Obviously this isn't a great idea when you're using top-dollar wood, but so far all of mine were cut from leftover pieces of crown molding.

[Panda]

A note for anyone lacking a power sander:
I make my grips from longer strips of wood, say about 2 feet, and shape the sides and top; drill the holes; and do most of the sanding before cutting them down so I have plenty of wood to hold in a vise. Then I mark the backside with them screwed to the gun, cut, sand, and finish. I also do the notch for the MSH pin before cutting to length. Obviously this isn't a great idea when you're using top-dollar wood, but so far all of mine were cut from leftover pieces of crown molding.

I've heard of people doing it that way with long strips of wood, unfortunately all the pieces I have are already pretty small, so I'm pretty much stuck with working on each grip individually. You really need to pick up a Dremel tool. You'd be surprised how versatile it is with this kind of work.   

[Jeff H]

Do you guys that make your own grips use some template or just copy the plastic ones?

[MisterNoisy]

I spent some time making templates from heavy cardstock using the plastic ones as a base.

[Panda]

Do you guys that make your own grips use some template or just copy the plastic ones?

I haven't developed any templates just yet, because I'm still in the experimenting.I personally prefer a wider and thicker grip than the original plastic grips, so at some point I may build a template for just that style.

[benjammin]

Yes, I should get a dremel. I've been using chisels for so long from doing trim carpentry years ago that it seems easy enough, and my dog doesn't bark (he hates when I fire up the router).

I haven't made a template; I use the factory grips as guides to drill the holes (after using them to decide where to cut for the best grain/look), roughly shape the blanks, and as I shape the convex surface I test fit frequently until the edges are just shy of the edges of the guns frame or flush, then recheck while sanding to keep them straight. It sounds tedious, but with a few rasps of varying coarseness it goes pretty quick.