Roughing out Black Widow grips

[.54Cal_Kidd]

Here's some preliminary work on a set of grips for my Black Widow. That's 3/4 inch cherry so I'll have to re-saw it thinner once I cut a pair out on the band saw. You can see the original trace of the grip and where I altered the profile. Once it's cut out I'll fine tune it to fit my hand.
The hard wood should machine a lot better than the pine I used on the mini. And this one will get tung oil, not Wally-World, rattle-can.
The rubber just feels kind of creepy and having small hands, there's a couple spots that don't fit very well.
'Sides I'm a wood man from way back anyway, even got the wood outfit for the AR.   

[bigwheel]

Well that looks mighty purty. Good job!!

[.54Cal_Kidd]

Roughed out on the band saw and resawn for thickness.

[.54Cal_Kidd]

Screwed together and drum sanded for shape.
I also put a cut off brad nail near the bottom to keep them from twisting.
Note: for this kind of work a drum sander is a must!
Next comes the 3D sanding for hand fit.

[dbgUSMC]

That's looking really good!

[Bigbird48]

Now those would look good with a EGA on them.

[.54Cal_Kidd]

OK I lied...I had to mill out the frame recess first...
It's a little thinner than the rubber ones and contouring will be whatever feels good as I go.

[.54Cal_Kidd]

As a side note, if I do any more of these, I think I will do the milling before the shaping on the drum sander because I'm doing the milling by hand and there's a wee bit of a tolerance issue. 

[Stoneflie]

Those look nice.

[bigwheel]

Betcha that could teach a person to do the milling first next time .lol. Noticed my purty factory models had some fairly creative and precise looking milling/inletting on the bottom side. Did not seem to extend very deep. Hopefully you can can get het it gouged out properly without seeing any daylight on the far side.

[.54Cal_Kidd]

After finish sanding and test fitting.
After a coating of sanding sealer.
I didn't go nuts with getting a super smooth finish because basically I'm kinda lazy.
Actually, if you look you can see a wee bit of daylight on the right side grip. 
Ah well, they are more for comfort than show. Shes what y'all call 20 foot pretty. 
The bare wood is pretty slick and makes cocking it one handed a bit of a challenge.
Hopefully the finish will give it some stick. (insert assorted low humor here)
If these work out, I may just go with them. Otherwise I have enough decorative wood for about a thousand more. 
There's black walnut, sycamore, curly cherry, regular cherry, oak...
Black walnut...hmmm...

[ikoiko]

Nice work. Was milling the inside tough?

[TwoGunJayne]

I love this thread. Thank you very much, sir. You are a scholar and a gentleman.

EDIT: Well, drat! The "mind blown" animated gif is not playing properly! I'd been saving this one for years for just the proper thread! I know this is quite a bit of a buzzkill, but just google image search for mind blown animated gif. It slowly made it to the top of the top rankings and even Google has to admit it. Alternatively, you can save it to your desktop and view it there. Drat! My cool maneuver was COMPRIMISED by some sort of site limitation.

... oh well. Figures.

[OV-1D]

  Great job there 54 that milling by hand is always a challenge , its keeping me from making some boot grips out of a piece of walrus tusk Ihave , I'm chicken . I'm going to have to work up some courage first and maybe figure out a jig of some sorts . Can't wait till your set is done to see the final results .

[bigwheel]

Looking mighty choice. Fine job!!

[.54Cal_Kidd]

Inside shot. I milled it out with a 1/4" router bit in a drill press. I do NOT recommend this to anyone because one slip and you can loose quite a bit of finger. I wouldn't if I had a better option. An X-Y vise would work great along with some sort of holding jig. Making a jig for one off production isn't very practical...except for the nasty injury part.  The bit had a tendency to grab the wood and yank it sideways. A strong hold and very slow movements are needed, not to mention taking a little at a time then raising the table a little more. Another method would be to mill it out before bandsawing the shape, that way you have a much bigger work piece.
Next shot is after a quick wipe with 0000 steel wool, wipe it off and then some tung oil varnish.
I'll probably go with three coats. Don't want it too shiny.

[bigwheel]

Excellent!! Nice wood selection too.

[.54Cal_Kidd]

Final product: Not unhappy with it, feels pretty good cuz' it fits my hand a bit better. 
The finish gave it a little 'stick' so grip isn't a problem. It could use a little more beaver tail behind the hammer too.
You can see where I got a little too aggressive with the sander and I need to source some nicer screws.
The counter sunk allen screws don't look bad but smaller would be better.
Some sort of nut on the other side would be better since I'm only tapping threads into the wood. It seems to hold well enough but I would have to shoot it a bit to see if the threads hold. Tung oil in the holes and then re-tapping the threads gives it more strength.
Overall the Kidd is pleased. 
I'm not a big fan of light colored wood but I do have some black walnut that is almost purple...boot leg mebe?

[bigwheel]

Looking mighty purty. Fine job!!

[kb64]

Very nice, I especially like the grain going through the wood.  Great job.

[Stoneflie]

those are sweet!