Saturday, May 17, 2008

Resurrecting A Diana Model 6M Pistol, Part 5

Let me just state up front that I have developed a profound respect for people that make custom pistol grips.

I sawed apart a flintlock pistol stock blank I bought from a friend and marked out the general shape.

I did label each one. It's pretty wood.

I used the Taig mill to thickness each piece and remove the bandsaw marks.

The LH grip is thicker than the RH one.

I then sawed closer to the line. In the case of the RH grip, you can see I got a little too close at the bottom. Sigh.

I used a router bit to remove most of the waste.
On the RH grip I also used a ball end mill to generate a rough curved section.

I then drilled the mounting holes for the screws.

Tons of work with chisels, rasps, burs and files to generate the basic shape. Then sanding, sanding, sanding...

Well, they're done for now, but I'm going to refine them further. There's a lot of thickness to them so I can keep removing material until they either fit me like a glove, or I screw them up totally...

You can see I trimmed a little too much up near the top corner.

You can see some tearout near the bottom screw hole. Good thing I have more to remove as I fit them to my hands.

There are a lot of rough spots left as well. But hey, it's my first attempt at making grips. In hindsight, a pair of target grips is definitely not a good starter project.

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