repair to webley grip

[ginger-5]

I have a Webley Senior with a small piece of the grip missing at one corner. I know these can be repaired with araldite to which a colouring agent has been added and I wonder if someone has carried out a successful repair on a brown grip and what was used to colour the araldite. Advice would be much appreciated.

[flatrajectory]

As the grips are bakelite ,superglue will do the job without any need to add colour. Just don`t use too much of it , Oh and be quick, or you can get a slow acting superglue that allows you about 30 seconds to get the correct position before it sets.
If using superglue what I do is this .. remove the grip panel .. apply a light coat of oil onto the metal grip frame ( to prevent the glue from sticking to it), then refit the grip panel to the pistol but do not tighten the screw fully. Now apply the glue to one half of the join and slide the broken piece into place and hold it while it sets, then re-tighten the grip screw.
Just my two penneth anyway.
Pete.

[felix gunner]

I think he is missing a bit off the corner (rather than a crack with both parts available) - this happens to the majority of Webleys in my experience. I have not repaired any but I removed the grip and smoothed off/polished the broken corner on mine to slightly improve the look.

[Vic Thompson]

I've done this type of repair many times in the past, but I have the advantage of having Moulds to put the grip into to form the repair into the correct shape.
However, I have carried out repairs without the aid of a Mould : To colour the Araldite, I originally used an epoxy colouring agent available from Hobby Shops, but have also used shoepolish. In both cases I experimented with the mix in order to achieve a reasonable approximation of the bulk colour. Use of a colouring agent to the Epoxy generally increases the hardening time, so patience is a must. To get the contour, "Sellotape" or similar can be used to form a crude Mould for the repair area. In my experience the adhesive needs a lot of mixing and needs to be left to "de-gass", otherwise bubbles will appear when the repair is trimmed to shape. I used 24 hour Araldite and applied gentle heat to aid flow into the repair area and minimise air bubble problems. When set I left the grip to harden for a week, or a few hours at elevated temperature in an oven. Then shaped using succesively finer grades of sandpaper, with a final buffering, then polished with a shoe brush laden with shoepolish. The original grip was undercut and drilled to maximise contact area, and in some cases, pinned as well.

Results were good, in a lot of cases, barely noticeable.

HTH, Vic T

[Prewar]

I have used Araldite plumbers putty before to fix chipped black grips, Milliput is very good too, they do a Terracotta one that may match http://www.milliput.com/prod.htm

[RichardH]

Coloured epoxy from a model shop has worked for me so I guess araldite is much the same

I used plastacine to form a mould and then when dry recheckered the missing piece and border, didnt look bad but still a visible repair.

Richard

[harvey_s]

Try this guy for very nice repro grips (he's on here but I can't remember his name) which he sells through the bay usually - item no. 110662998080 is an old listing of his which will give you his contact details...

[ginger-5]

thanks for all the advice.