Curly maple

F

freebullet

Guest
Sounds like you just about gave them blood stain.:confused:

They look real nice, and thanks for sharing the jig.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
I was wondering how you were going to do the curve, whether there is some cool trick (which I have
never thought of) or just hand work. Your post answered the question.

Looks nice. Any checkering in their future?

Bill
 

Glen

Moderator
Staff member
The rough curvature I do using the belt sander. Cleaning things up and bringing things into dimension I do with a draw file.
 

Glen

Moderator
Staff member
The final dimensions I'm targeting are .280" thick at the lower escutcheon, and .270" thick at the upper escutcheon, so I rough shape them to a little over .300" thick in both places.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
I have some interesting grain walnut and have thought about making some 1911 grips,
but the curve seemed to be a bit difficult without some sort of fixture.

I have been thinking of a conical pivoting jig that you mount the blank on and then swivel
on a disk sander. Perhaps overthinking this! :)

Bill
 

Ian

Notorious member
Bill, you've shown us some of your woodworking skills and you ARE overthinking it! Screw the stocks to a 1x2 and arc them on a belt sander or jointer belt by hand with the Mk I eyeball. Do your profile on the sander too, just trace like Glen said with a sharp pencil and use the polished sander table to sand the profile to the line.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
OK, here goes.:eek::) Not disagreeing with you, Ian, but . . . o_O

Measuring the grips on my Commander which is handy, I get .240" thick at both screw
locations, 1.510" wide at the bottom screw location, 1.265" wide at the top, perpendicular
to a line between the two holes.

Laying these out and fitting circles to them, gives me a 1 7/8" diam at the top, and 2 3/4" diam at the
bottom. If I turn a wooden cone to these dimensions, and then mill a flat on it, about
.010 - .020 below flush, then screw down a blank of the right width dimensions, with the
cone on pivots at the centers of the ends, mounted on a base with the edge lined up
with the surface of the cone, not the axis, this can be run up to a disk sander and
rotated to get a proper surface curvature, a nice and true cone. The .010 below surface
prevents getting sharp edges on the grips, and I might stop a little high, getting .260ish
thickness.

Overkill......no doubt. But, it would be neat to do.

Bill
 
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Ian

Notorious member
Ok, I see your point. Question, though. If you have the tooling to turn a wooden cone jig on your lathe, why not use the same setup to contour the stocks themselves after milling flats, drilling screw holes, and mounting them to the jig? Glen must be doing a Picard face-palm right about now... :rolleyes:
 

Glen

Moderator
Staff member
No face-palm here, but I agree with you Ian, there is no need to over think this. That being said, I would never stand in the way of someone executing a clever solution. I have not measured anything, but a quick eyeball on the radius of curvature for 1911 grips looks to me like it's going to be considerably larger than a diameter of 1 7/8" or 2 3/4"
 

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
Chris,
That is Behlen's Solar-Lux stain in Nutmeg Brown. It is a sprit stain which soaks in pretty well on hard maple
Jim
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
Glenn,
I thought so, too, until I measured it and laid it out on the drafting board. Since your
grips are .280 thick and necessarily the same width (or pretty close) that would make
the radius even smaller -- however, if you have significant square edge on them, it could
be a lot greater diam. The particular ones I was measuring come almost to a knife
edge.

Like any grips, lots of room for individual preference. Many like as thin grips as they can
get on the 1911, others like thicker grips - hand size, finger length would seem to be the
issue, trying to change the circumference a bit.

And Ian - yeah, contouring on the lathe would work, but it would be crossgrain on the grips,
but I have a mini air belt sander that might work on the lathe for final sanding to clean
up the grain tearing from turning them on the cone. Sanding cross grain will also leave some
scratches that will have to be worked out by hand sanding with the grain.

Until I actually do it - which may never happen, it is just a 20 minute exercise in measurement,
and drafting. It would make more sense if you intended to make 3 or 4 sets of grips. If you
were going into production, you could cut four flats on the cone and contour two sets at
one time on the lathe.

Bill
 

NAGANT

Active Member
I made a few sets of S&W N frame grips. The 4 in 1 file worked great to shape those curves. these were my first try's
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M3845708Bama

Active Member
No checkering. I haven't decided on stain yet. I will probably just oil them. Depends on what the grain does as I get further into the sanding.

If you want to make grain really "Pop" get some cromic acid crystalls from Dixie Gunworksand follow directions. It will make a plain maple stock look like a 200 year old muzzle loader from the Smithsonian.
 

Glen

Moderator
Staff member
Thanks for the tip. I have some chromic acid. I'll have to look around for how to use is on wood.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
KMnO4 works well to except it gives a flat brown. I prefer a hint of red.
I know some of the local ML builders use leather dye.
Chromic acid is good but can lead to a hint of green in the final product. It will bring out the grain nicely.
 

Ian

Notorious member
I hadn't heard of chromic acid, but ferric chloride is sometimes used to accent the curl in maple, I think that's been a trick for hundreds of years.