Saturday afternoon with the Elk Dog Chews

[45flint]

Beats shoveling snow.  

   

[capn]

More masterpieces!

[Uncle_Lee]

Yep, another beautiful set.

   As usual.

[45flint]

Getting back to the Elk.  Really has its own unique beauty.  There is a real kick taking a fairly cheap tine that was maybe going to be chewed by a dog and taking it the whole way to a grip. You can certainly influence the surface features but you can't totally control it, so at the end it is very cool to see what the antler finally gave you.  Elk really has a very rustic look and feel but polishes well.

[45flint]

Saturday morning finished it, ended up being the longest grip I have made so far, still I think it fits these long barrels.  Really like the rustic look of the elk, can't really get the high polish in the picture.  

   

   

   

   

   

[big_gus]

Yeah those are some good looking grips! What do you use to polish your grips? I made a set of 1911 Elk grips one time from a lone antler I found while on a Elk Hunting trip years ago. They turned out much much better than I expected, but I never did polish them up. Of course I had about 500 in the stuff I bought to make them for a set of maybe $75-$100 grips, lol. I had thoughts of starting to make grips but when it took me about 2 weeks to complete, I decided not to proceed with anymore as it would make more since for me to just buy them. Now I also see why people buy cut blanks instead of the entire antler :0 I know the blanks of good material are very high because I had checked into that also. You look to have the whole process mastered!

[45flint]

To polish, you need to sand them from 180, 220, 380, 500.  Then I use a dremel with a small felt polishing wheel.  Red Dremel rouge first polish and then I use a finer rouge that is green.  I will work a set for a week, off and on.  Too much of a perfectionist to make money at it.  Hardest part of this set what the screw did not want to go in right for some reason that took an hour or two I think.

[big_gus]

Thanks for the info! I may decide to hunt those grips up and finally try to finish them.