Homemade '58 Rem grips

I resently came across a post where someone used polymer based oven-cured craft clay to make a set of grips for a revolver. I had been wanting a set of ivory-white or pearl-white for my '58 Rem but put it on the back burner when I started pricing them. So when I saw this post the brain wheels started turning and thought I'd give it a try. This is how I went about it.

Now in reading this post the first thing that jumped out at me was the "large amount of sanding" that was involved in the process. This person made his by making a cardboard template of the grip frame and then forming them by hand which was the reason for all the hand sanding to shape. I thought that there had to be an easier way to form the grip to get it closer to the finished shape.

Here's what I did......I got some plaster of paris and made a mould of the orginal grip panels. I sprayed the panels with WD40 to keep the plaster from sticking when it came time to remove them. It worked great but you have to let the plaster dry totally before pulling the panels out. Make sure you push the panels into the plaster deep enough to get a nice clean outside edge. It only takes 10 to 15 minutes for the plaster to harden so you have to work fast from the time you add the water to the time you pour it into whatever container your using to make your mould and get your panels inserted. Learned this on the first try.

Next...I used bath powder as a parting agent, lightly dusting the inside of the mould before putting in the clay. When pushing the clay into the mould, you have to kinda roll it in, starting from one side to the other as to keep it from trapping air in between the clay and the mould.

Once I had the clay in the mould I used a metal straight edge to cut the excess clay off and level out the back of the grip. I carefully removed the clay from the mould and ended up with a perfect copy of my original. The neat part about doing it this way is once you have the mould made, you can make as many sets as wish in different colors and patterns. Once cured as per the clays instructions, you can sand (not much really) and drill as needed for final shaping and hardware instalation. I also made a set in a translucent pearl for my Single Six. They turned out nice as well.

Just thought I'd share this little project's info. Maybe this will help someone in making their own personal designs.

Thanks everyone.

The clay that I used for the grips in the pictures was Craft Smart that I got at Michael's. I used Sculpey III on a set of Pearl like grips I made for my Ruger Single Six. the Sculpey didn't cure as hard as the Craft Smart but that may be because it was the Pearly stuff. I'm going to spray the "58 NMA grips with a gloss laquer after I get the hardware installed. They're pretty hard as it is though. I don't think durability is going to be a problem. It's easy to correct any mistakes like holes drilled in the wrong spots or uneven edges. Just fill in the boo boo with more clay and rebake. the new bonds to the old flaulessly.

I searched different sites and found some pictures of replicated animal bone, antler, and ivory made with this stuff. They looked pretty nice.

Thanks again folks for the cudo's.

I thought real hard about buying one of those "make a mould" kits to use with plastic resin but I decided against it since they are kinda expensive and not sure if my experiment would work. I like the idea of inbedding coins or medalions in the grip. I worked with that stuff way, way back in 7th grade shop class. It was easy to do but we used premade hard plastic moulds for our projects.

I'm guessing CA glue is CyanoAcrylate...eerrr or something like that. Super Glue...yeah that's it, super glue. Right?

Scrat, I just used a little bit of black in with the white. I just didn't totally mix the two which left the streaks of black in the white. In the total amount used of the white to make two panels I only added an amount about the size of a dime of the black.