KingOfKindling
32 Cal
So, I've got big hands, and navy sized grips really are just too small. The army grips are a bit better, and I've got a Pietta 1860 franken gun with navy grips I wanted to swap out. The triggerguard and backstrap parts were available, but no decent grips were popping up. Taylor firearms sometimes stocks raw grips, but they were out.
Figured I'd try and make my own. Could do it by hand, but I have 3D printers and a home built CNC router, and in the future I'd like to make a detachable buttstock (since they're pretty much unobtanium). Some grips seem like good practice, and my CNC machine needed maintenance. I can tune the machine, and practice cutting stuff without being out as much as a full stock.
Started out with modeling a grip in Fusion360, then 3D printing various test samples. This one is a bit early, I settled on being a bit more oversized to make sure final shaping would be as good as I can do.
First wood cuts were on a piece of curly maple board I had on the shelf. This is a 7mm 4 flute bit. Travel speed of 20 inches per minute and spinning about 20k rpm.
After the roughing was completed I did the finishing pass with a 1/16 2 flute ball end mill. Was all I had, and didn't have enough clearance so I needed to get fancy with the CAM settings. Was able to finish the grip, but the grip ended up a bit long. No big deal, I've since had some proper bits arrive. Had video of the finishing pass, but it's too big to upload apparently. Here's a picture instead.
Fit is pretty good on my test gun. This one has a factory Army grip, so it makes for a good template. More material to remove by hand than I'd like, but with some minor tweaking and the correct ball end mill the next pieces will be better.
I've got some Karelian Birch I'm playing with, and some various maple burl wood coming. Still shopping around for a nice chunk of highly figured walnut.
Figured I'd try and make my own. Could do it by hand, but I have 3D printers and a home built CNC router, and in the future I'd like to make a detachable buttstock (since they're pretty much unobtanium). Some grips seem like good practice, and my CNC machine needed maintenance. I can tune the machine, and practice cutting stuff without being out as much as a full stock.
Started out with modeling a grip in Fusion360, then 3D printing various test samples. This one is a bit early, I settled on being a bit more oversized to make sure final shaping would be as good as I can do.
First wood cuts were on a piece of curly maple board I had on the shelf. This is a 7mm 4 flute bit. Travel speed of 20 inches per minute and spinning about 20k rpm.
After the roughing was completed I did the finishing pass with a 1/16 2 flute ball end mill. Was all I had, and didn't have enough clearance so I needed to get fancy with the CAM settings. Was able to finish the grip, but the grip ended up a bit long. No big deal, I've since had some proper bits arrive. Had video of the finishing pass, but it's too big to upload apparently. Here's a picture instead.
Fit is pretty good on my test gun. This one has a factory Army grip, so it makes for a good template. More material to remove by hand than I'd like, but with some minor tweaking and the correct ball end mill the next pieces will be better.
I've got some Karelian Birch I'm playing with, and some various maple burl wood coming. Still shopping around for a nice chunk of highly figured walnut.
