M1911 grips

[cowboy1296]

I hope those are toys that you are putting those on. Every one knows that guns are evil. : ) Now if you believe that I have some swampland in Louisiana for sale, just call 1-800-whitewater. Those look great.

[khaos]

I love those spalted grips! The birds eye is beautiful. But the spalted really grab me. Great finish.

[Xray]

Made these from Scotts file [thanks for that], not bad for a start.
Didn't make the recess that I notice on most of the others, guess I can sand one in by hand if necessary.
No holes or countersink yet, will probably do that by hand too.,, But I did mark them out.

Wood is rosewood and light walnut, used a 1/32 bit no roughing necessary. Textured ones took about an hour, smooth ones with the off center skull half that.

I think this was another file, but what purpose are those tabs for ?

[myxpykalix]

Excellent looking and the finish is great.

[Xray]

Thanks, considering it is just a matte rattle can clear coat, does look pretty good.
I consider these prototypes, will likely get a bit more meticulous once I get serious about it. Am going for cocobola, bocote and corian next.

[srwtlc]

Cool Doug! Are you talking about the notch for the plunger on the back/top of the left side grip? I just sanded that in with a drum sander or Dremel. The file was for a Ruger SR1911, so you may need slight modifications for others.

The tabs were for keeping the part intact with the waste, as I screwed the blank down. You should be able to turn the tab component off if you don't need them.

Nice work! I need some time to make some again.

[Xray]

Come to think of it, first order will be for a Colt so I guess I'll see what I need when I have it in hand. I was talking about the thumb notch.

Is there any way to move the grips closer together ? Been bending my brain with no luck so far, they are locked together as 1 component. I have some real nice thin wood and all I need is .5 of slack and I'd be able to use it.

[srwtlc]

Oh yeah, that notch on the surface. I played with that and did run a few with a couple of different ones (should be a picture of one or two earlier in the thread). I never came up with a real good way of making that notch just right, it always took some playing and sculpting. Haven't taken the time to revisit it again.

On separating the two, us the split tool.

[Xray]

As promised, bocote and wenge - Didn't have any cocobola to spare.
Wenge looks great, really like this stuff. It actually has subtle brownish grain but its hard to see with the clear coat.
Going to hold off on the corian until I'm sure the design is correct, which means I either need a pistol in hand or pair of grips, or both.

Next project is going to be mdf with iron patina, and I am thinking about gluing up say 6 1/16th various thin exotic boards and making grips with that.

[Tom Bachman]

These grips are freaking cool! Little brother was asking about grips for his Smith and Wesson revolver. The 1911's look awesome though.