I recently finished up my PhD at the University of Arizona, and my parents bought me this 2nd generation Colt 125th anniversary SAA. This pistol shoots better than any revolver I have ever handled. The timing and lock up are amazing on this old girl .



The problem is the old Walnut grips have shrunk/expanded/shifted over the years leaving a nasty edge exposed all the way around that digs into your hand.



I have made quite a few grips in the past for other pistols, so I figured I would just make some for this guy as well.

I dug through my wood supply and settled on this curly maple I had laying around from some guitar builds. The wood is kinda special because it was grown, cut, an dried close to where I grew up in West Virginia



So I start milling it down to size



Curly maple like this has alternating grain patterns, and that is what gives it its stripes. Straight knife cutter heads on jointers and planers eat that stuff up! Real professionals use spiral cutterheads and drum sanders. Hillbillys like myself, take shallow passes, wet the grain with mineral spirits, and run the wood through the planer at an angle

I try to pick out the best figure, and cut out the rough shape





This is the critical step on SAA grips, you have to fit the grip to the frame perfectly, or you get nasty looking gaps and nobody likes that.
* Hard maple and sugar maple burn easily when you sand it, the sugars caramelize. Smells nice, but darkens the wood. Not a big deal on this because those areas will be hidden and I plan on dying the wood a darker color





These old Colts with 2-piece grip configurations had index pins to hold the grips in place. I am just using a rubber mallet to precisely mark the holes and trace the perimeter

I have a lot of cool sanders because I build a lot of guitars that make shaping the perimeter easier. On 1911s and other pistols, I would actually make a router template and route out the grips using the template, double sided tape and bearing guided router bit. This old Colts were all hand polished and no two grips are the same so making templates won't do me much good.





Layout

Drilling concentric holes in wood is bit more challenging than working with metal. First, I drill the 1/8" hole through both grips taped back to back to get the proper alignment. But I cant simply drill the 1/4" hole by centering the bit like you would with metal.

I use the 1/8" drill bit to drill an 1/8" hole in the bottom material, then add an indexing pin. Now I can simply change out the 1/8" bit for a 1/4" bit and drill a perfectly concentric hole.





Also, you have to use Forstner or Brad point bits on wood, or you get some nasty tear out.

Then I went to carve the wood, and this is where the FAIL came to play. All the figure in the wood was superficial, and when I carved the grips I carved away all the figure. This happened to me one time before making a guitar neck. Heartbreaking really. Could be worse I suppose. I carved a figured maple guitar neck once, and the middle of the wood had a big old nasty knot/void which ended up being a total loss.


I ended up with a workable set of grips that wont dig into my hand, but I am not happy with the look.

These were finished with an old technique of hand rubbing the wood with brown paper sack and tung oil, then I gave it nice coat of bees wax.


Once I saw that the figure was all gone, I didn't sand and shape as carefully as I should have and you can see a spot or two where I got a little aggressive.

Couple spots where the metal is proud, but beautiful work, and congratulations sir! I'll address you as Doctor Colt from now on!

Edited to add: you can call me Mr. Pig...lol

I think you did a Great Job, Thanks for sharing!

Yeah, once I lost the figure, I didn't take my time with the shaping. These won't be on the gun very long.

Thanks

Too bad about how the figure was lost, but I think they turned out pretty nice, myself...and you got yourself a little tuneup on technique. Hope you hit the jackpot on the next attempt!

Nice job! You're a real woodworker. I need one of those Ridgid sanders. I have some fairly fancy looking spalted Pecan, which is almost white, with the spalting lines in it. Also spalted Ash. I can send you some if you'd like. Just let me know.

Or, Woodcraft will sell you Rosewood, Bocote, Satine, or others.

The Rigid Oscilating belt and spindle sanders are amazing little tools. They are not super powerful, so they won't remove a lot of material - but that is also what makes them nice.

Thank you very much for the offer, that spalted pecan sounds amazing. I have a bunch of lumber in my shop, I should be able to find something suitable.

I have a strong feeling that your next run will be a winner! Frustrating but that will temper your next try. GL

Seriously, SAA grips were much more difficult than I anticipated.

Yes, they can be very frustrating. And trying to work on matched figure or grain can be even more trying. Heck, I worry as much about my fingers as I do cutting/sanding correctly. I would whack the grips with a small rod and maybe beat them with a link dog collar to give them a distressed look and call it quits and look at them for a couple of months to see if they didn't get better. JMO

I apologize, I re-read my post and most certainly did not intend to critique your work. If I tried something like that I'd end up with bloody nubs for fingers, so I wouldn't even need grips, anyway! I was sincere when I said beatiful work.

What happen to the original factory grips?

Tucked away safely in the safe.

Will you make me some "failures" for a Blackhawk? I would use those "failures" proudly.

I think they look much better than the ones that came on it. Congrats on your PH.D.

That's real craftsmanship at work.

What's your PhD in?

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If I had a black hawk to work from, I wouldn't mind at all.

Thanks

Thanks, my PhD is in Animal Science, I am a beef cattle scientist. I work mainly in beef cattle production, range animals and nutrition.