Anyone make their own grips?

@Viper1357 makes awesome grips.
I've been meaning to give it a try , I've got a FA revolver with horrible pachmyer grips and there is no way to get premade grips for those guns- custom only.
I'm not real handy with wood, but I'm thinking what's the worst thing that could happen.
Good luck, can't wait to see what you come up with.

Yes, I do. I like fancy wood. Nearly all of the ones I've made now reside in a box as I've switched to those ugly Hogue rubber grips on nearly everything I shoot. The hard recoilers don't recoil as hard any more and I can get a better grip on every gun I've put them on and my groups have shrunk after the change. Now if I could just completely stop those darned tremors things would be good again.

Obduration, the worst thing that can happen is you ruin some wood. Start with plain wood to save some money and as your woodworking skills improve go to the fancy stuff. A little tip: Use SHARP tools.

Please be aware that "fancy" woods like holly are very unstable. They can change shape and dimensions over relatively short periods of time. So one could make a grip which would not fit after a few months. Better to cut a few years in advance, and then blank it out and save after giving the wood time to stabilize.

You might try selling cut pieces in the "Trading Post" forums here. I've made spome pistols grips out of wood that I've bought from a local woodworking shop, but I've also got a couple small branches from a neighbor's black walnut tree he cut down years ago that I fantasize making grips or even a rifle stock out of. So, yeah, go for it!!

Brutuskend

Yes, American Holly Wood makes for some very nice faux ivory looking grips. These were done by Private's Custom Grips who unfortunately is no longer in the grip making business.

My farm, actually 45 acres of timber, creek and five acres of tillable bottoms, is rife with walnut, oak, and locust. I'm about to slice off a few boles and cut a few twisted limbs to see if I can get some good figured slabs to work with.

Making pistol grips is very easy to do. Even carving a rifle stock is a lot easier than everyone seems to think it is.

Interested to see how they turn out! Im about to make some grips for my custom birdshead Ruger wrangler when my new bandsaw blades show up. Got a few scraps of reclaimed Cuban Mahogany from an expensive job my dad did a few years ago that im gonna make use of. Had maybe 80 board feet of it that burned with our shop a few years back. Going rate is about $30 a board foot, if you can find it. Hasn't been exported from Cuba since '48. Storm damaged trees from Florida are now the only source for it.

I suggest making some 1911 grips for starters. I have some I made out of walnut around here somewhere.
Anyway, OP, I would be happy to buy a little of that holly if you make it available.

Holly has been used as a thin veneer facing on the headstock of Gibson Les Paul guitars since the 50's. It is applied over the face of the headstock, covering the three pieces used to make the headstock. It is very stable in that application although I have no idea how long it is dried befor being used. I would expect that similarly cured pieces would work as well for grips.

Brutuskend said:

I started cutting it up today , and it turns out that only about 1/2 inch of the outer section is white. Probably thick enough in places for 1911 grips but I'm not sure if any of it would be thick enough for revolver grips. The heart wood is a BEAUTFUL brown though! And this wood is very very dense and fine grained. I almost like the heart wood better than the white myself.

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What the heck man, no pics!? Man...

I made a set of grips for a Webley Tempest. I do not care for grips with thumb rests. Let me decide where I want to put my thumb.
Pics.




It was a good little project during the stay at home pandemic.

L

That is a beautiful color!

While I do make grip panels, most during the winter as other work slows down, I've never tried Holly. My main useage involves English Walnut and American Black Walnut burl that is found in the root system, around where it collides with the trunk of the tree:

The hard walnut woods allow checkering at 22 LPI and produce some nice hard diamonds that pop off, like the more open pore tree limb wood is prone to do.
Is that Holly a very "hard wood", with open or closed pores? I'd like to try some of that and will pay for shipping, or whatever you need for cutting.
This is what the hard burl walnuts will allow for checkering:

I have done 1911 panels in the past, those that I've made, and for the 22/45 pistols as well:



I only checker when the panels surface pores and grain are completely filled and the surface finish has hardened completely.

Years ago I found a pallet made of all things... ROSEWOOD! I took it home, cleaned it up and gave a bunch of it away and made some 1911 grips. Nothing fancy like checkering just smooth grips, I really dislike checkering and frame stippling.

I have not tried it yet, but am going to try to make these grip blanks into a grip that fits me for Free Pistol.





TOZ-35M

Bob

rkittine said:

I have not tried it yet, but am going to try to make these grip blanks into a grip that fits me for Free Pistol.
TOZ-35M

BobView attachment 970440

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The BEST of luck with your endeavors. When learning how to checker, the first thing I learned was that "patience" is imperative. If it starts to feel like work, put the tools down and take a break.
The very first set of checkering tools I bought were from Herters. Being that they made nothing but the BEST of whatever it was, and it even said so in their catalog, I figured all I needed to do was just hang onto the tool. Those tools are now "sleeping with the fishes" in Lake Michigan. Once I finally got a good set of cutters and learned that it took more than two days to play a guitar, so everyone around wasn't annoyed, the patience involved helped a lot.

SGW Gunsmith said:

Once I finally got a good set of cutters

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What brand(s) do you use?

For the last 30 years I've used the W.E. Brownell cutters and bifurcated handles. Before the original maker passed, I stocked up on all the LPI and single line to 4-line cutters from 18 to 24 lines per inch, and then single line cutters in 60°, 75° and 90°. And I also bought two dozen handles, the original style using walnut.
His daughter and son-in-law took over the business and they kept the quality in the product, same as what the father done. Once they sold the business to an East India outfit, all went down hill and the cutters became junk, at higher prices. You can still find the W.E. Brownell cutters on ebay now and then.
For currently available cutters, I would recommend the Gun-Line brand. The teeth are open to allow wood dust to escape and the teeth can be re-sharpened with a barret style needle file. They also cut forward and backward.
I've tried the Dembart cutters, but not for long. The fine teeth clog up with wood dust very quickly, and once that happens, the cutter can and will jump track and cause your language to deteriorate very quickly.