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Originally Posted by Doc Hoy
....I like the progress you are making on the grips.
I think they are going to look real sweet!
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Thanks Doc.
I finished my first set tonight and considering these "prototypes", they look ok and are functional but flawed cause I screwed up placing one of the cbores... I can do better but these helped me identify all the pitfalls. Here is the lowdown...
>It is possible to drill and cbore the mounting holes by eye but really not the way to go. I don't have a mill and cant brainstorm a home made drill press fixture right now but am thinking a cross slide drill press vise might work. Problem is the hole pattern is not parallel with either of the straight sides of the grips and unless you want to completely strip your frame you have to shape the grip profile first which is too much work invested if you screw up the hole to hole location. I think the trick to doing this by eye is to mark the holes with an original grip but do not unclamp the grip from drillpress after drilling and switch over to the endmill to do the screwhead side cbore. Repeat this for each of the 4 holes. There is a cbore needed on the frame side but not as critical and will never show if you err and fix you'd have to unclamp the grips anyways.
>As I mentioned earlier its important to match the grip height to the bushing and screw head assembly height. I want my screw heads below flush in the cbore. In the second photo I shaped the outside profile with a coarse file by hand, this was easy enough to do... I went too far. I checked on Google and found low profile/slim grip screws and bushings from edbrown.com affordable so I ordered some they came in just a couple days, faster than the end mill from McMaster.
>Colt stakes their grip bushings. It was kind of a commitment when deciding to remove them cause you cant re-use them. FWIW, edbrown.com sells very nice cocobolo wood grips in regular and slim profile for only ~40 bucks...
>last pitfall is my new rotary tool from Harbor Freight broke when milling out the relief area for the safety plunger tube. Everytime I buy cheap tooling I get a reminder why I shouldn't.
So next up I want to make a new set over again. I'm thinking of using the prototypes to see if I can hand make a large diamond shape in the center with checkering IDK. Either way ideally I want to sand the grips smooth and lacquer them. I need to get some locktite for the new bushings.