first attempt at homemade grips

S

SharttStrike

Regular
Rating - 100%
3   0   0
Location
East Coast
I've had my norc 1911 for a bit now and I've had the urge to start to make it my own. I like to tinker and I don't like paying people to do work for me when I can attempt it myself. I've already polished a few things internally to clean up the trigger (don't worry didn't touch the sear don't have the proper tools for that). So I figured what else can you do at home and figured I'd try to make my own grips. I followed the instructions from http://www.1911pistolgrips.com/process.php
The the grips are made out of what I believe is a piece of ash. It was actually a runner from an old toboggan which my dad used to pull me and my sisters around with. Good thing about this is the wood is about as stable as you are going to get being 28+ years old :D

Ended up getting the drill bits required from Lee Valley as they are very odd sizes. The downside is the type of brad point i used scores before it cuts which makes the lip for the screw hard to make. That and the drill press I used is old and not exactly precision equipment. Its not stained or sealed yet as I'm not sure what I want to do there. I might just seal it. Its my first attempt so they aren't perfect. A couple things I've learned from this:

1: The lipped brad point bits aren't the best for this
2: Make sure the thickness is set prior to shaping everything
3: Lee Valley has a ton of wood I'd like to make grips out of (about 10-15 bucks will make a couple sets easy)
4: Our gun laws suck!

Probably wondering about #4. Well I did the work at my Dad's place as wood working is a hobby of his (he has all the tools) got so far then had to fit it on the gun which is at home. Kind of frustrating. So had to borrow his drill press to finish it up.

Bnw47h.jpg

0T68G.jpg


I'll be making another set at some point fun thing to make and not very hard. Maybe out of purple heart or zebra wood. So far into this little project 15 dollars to pick up the specialty drill bits. So if you like 1911's and you like wood working I'd say give it a try :)
 
Before you oil or stain them you may want to steam the wood and remove any feathering that comes up or when you have them out on a humid day they can swell a bit. I have made several set of gun and knife grips and it helps to give and keep a smooth finish.
 
Thanks guys :) It was actually fun to make them. As for time it took I forgot to keep track but probably couple of hours. Seemed a lot longer because it was split up over two weekends since I couldn't bring the frame to my Dad's place for test fitting (and Lee Valley is closed on sundays). Now that I've made a set I could probably make them rather quick. Its nothing to trace the shape out and cut it. Shaping doesn't take long either. The time consuming part is getting the holes drilled in the right location.
 
An oil finish will give that light coloured wood a more "honey" like tone. And an oil finish is easy to clean and maintain. You simply wash them off with some gentle solvent, dry then apply and rub off the excess with the original finishing oil.

Proper wood finishing oils can be but are not limited to raw and boiled linseed, raw or polymerized tung, Danish, Tru-Oil and likely a few others. But the ones named are the most commonly used oils for gun stocks and scale which will air dry in a few hours to a few weeks without turning rancid along the way.

What you really want for the screw holes is to drill the pilot size which fits over the bushings and then get a counter bore bit of the correct size for the screw heads that has the correct size pilot. Or drill for the pilot size, counterbore to the right depth then finish out hte holes with the size to fit over the screw bushings. Either way the counter bore bit is the key.

But the counter bore bit doesn't have any scoring lips for cutting wood. So do the holes before you begin the final thinning and shaping to avoid chewouts. Or you can look at grinding/stoning the brad point drills to reduce the size and hook of the spurs on the brad point drills so they don't chew away so much wood around the edges.
 
For the grips I've made, I use a 7/32 first, drilling right through. Then on the backside, I do a relief for the bushing shoulder with a 9/32 bit. Works for the screw head relief on the face as well. This is all done before shaping the grip of course, as BC Rider stated. Your rough stock will then be shaped down to proper thickness and any imperfections can be worked out of the material. I just use the trial and error method for proper plunge depth of my drill press. I keep telling myself to make a proper template to guide the position of my bushing holes, but I keep using an old sacrificial grip instead and tape it to the working piece to hold it in place. Has worked so far.

Haven't made any out of wood (not sure why, I'm a carpenter!), I've only made repro "sweetheart" grips with lexan (still need to swap in a set of thin bushings on these as the lexan is slimmer than a standard grip).

049-1.jpg


032-4.jpg


The hardest part of making a set of grips for a 1911 (in my limited experience) is cutting the relief for the grip to wrap over the plunger tube.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom