Gonna cut out the center section and get the birch grips glued together today. Might also cut out a pair of maple grips while I'm messing with the CNC.
Here's the grips and the frame they'll be going on. Second picture shows the toolmarks that need removing. I could get rid of a lot of that on the CNC with a second pass, but it'd be wasted machine time. Sandpaper removes the lines faster, and you need to remove a bit of wood to match the metal anyway.
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Now, as for the first maple grip I cut, it likely won't be getting a matching side. I only had enough room on this pieces to cut 3 grip sides, and honestly didn't expect the first attempt to go well.
Since It's gonna be lonesome on it's own, I figured it'd be a good test to properly sand it, and do more stain testing.
Here it is with a really light coat of iron nitrate. It's been sanded to 320 grit and whiskered twice.
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Here it is after heat was applied. You can see some splotches up towards the top where I had to add more iron nitrate and it got a little darker. Missed some spots on the first application.
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Fortunately, the darker spots blended in just fine with everything else. Here's the grip after I knocked back the iron nitrate with some green scotch bright (~600grit).
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I then added some LMF Cherry, and LMF Maple to get a look I liked. Here it is next to a Uberti Walker grip for reference.
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