The Wiry Irishman
Member
A couple weeks ago, I modified a set of S&W 41 grips to fit someone with small hands, and I remembered how much I liked woodworking. My life is getting very stressful, so I decided to make some grips for my guns from scratch. I couldn't find wood of appropriate thickness for the 1911 grips I wanted to make, but a friend of mine gave me this piece of walnut, so I decided to make a set of PPK grips:
The biggest complaints I get from people shooting my PPK is the narrow backstrap making the recoil hurt, the grip being too small, and the slide biting the web of the hand, so I was going for something like this. My goals were a set of big, comfortable grips that covered the backstrap and had finger grooves. I wasn't very concerned with practicality, just enjoying working with wood to relax.
First I cut out a pair of 6cmx8cmx2.5cm blocks:
Then I started Dremeling out the block to fit onto the gun:
Because I didn't do a very good job of fitting, I put some Loctite Epoxy putty in the grips, covered the grip frame in lube and pressed it in to get a better fit:
It turned out that I didn't cut out large enough blocks and didn't have enough space on the backstrap, so I had to glue another chunk on the back:
Then I roughed out the shape with the Dremel:
To finish them, I sanded them with 150, 320, then 600 grit sandpaper and started putting tung oil on them. I drilled the holes for the grip screw. On the right side, I recessed a hole and embedded a washer, and on the left embedded a nut inside the epoxy putty so there wouldn't be a hole on the outside:
After the first coat of oil:
After four coats of oil:
Inside of finished grips:
I'm limited on number of pics per post, so I'll put the pics of the finished grips on the gun in the next post.
The biggest complaints I get from people shooting my PPK is the narrow backstrap making the recoil hurt, the grip being too small, and the slide biting the web of the hand, so I was going for something like this. My goals were a set of big, comfortable grips that covered the backstrap and had finger grooves. I wasn't very concerned with practicality, just enjoying working with wood to relax.
First I cut out a pair of 6cmx8cmx2.5cm blocks:
Then I started Dremeling out the block to fit onto the gun:
Because I didn't do a very good job of fitting, I put some Loctite Epoxy putty in the grips, covered the grip frame in lube and pressed it in to get a better fit:
It turned out that I didn't cut out large enough blocks and didn't have enough space on the backstrap, so I had to glue another chunk on the back:
Then I roughed out the shape with the Dremel:
To finish them, I sanded them with 150, 320, then 600 grit sandpaper and started putting tung oil on them. I drilled the holes for the grip screw. On the right side, I recessed a hole and embedded a washer, and on the left embedded a nut inside the epoxy putty so there wouldn't be a hole on the outside:
After the first coat of oil:
After four coats of oil:
Inside of finished grips:
I'm limited on number of pics per post, so I'll put the pics of the finished grips on the gun in the next post.
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