Making grips questions

[ggggr]

I've got a Milbro Cougar with broken grips and I am due to get another in a similar state. I'd like wooden grips for it (not the sillly fore end bits) and the idea would be to make them ambi rather than handed-----like the proper ones on Danny's site https://forum.vintageairgunsgallery....milbro-cougar/
Someone very kindly made me a set for another pistol years ago and made them in 3 pieces---the 2 sides and a centre piece glued to one of the sides. Bearing in mind I not longer have access to a bandsaw like when I made a few crude Webley Tempest grips from an old door , how difficult would it be to make them?
What wood is easy to work with? Where can I get it from (posted) at a decent price? Would I be able to rough them out with a jigsaw or would a coping saw be better?
As I am going to need 2 sets, It would be 4 plain sides about 6mm thick and 2 centre pieces about 12mm thick.

Why are Milbro Cougar grips so bloody fragile

[xbow]

Starting with your last question, wood can loose its integrity if it dries out too much. The wood may not have been of a particularly good quality to start with.

There are two hardwoods that are very popular for guns and that’s Walnut and Beech. As Beech is normally quite pale in colour it’s often stained. Neither of them are difficult to carve with sharp tools. There are plenty of other hardwoods you could use though. A coping saw would give better control but a jigsaw will do if you’re careful.

[Modski66]

I went to the trade counter of a local timber merchant and got a couple of lumps of walnut window-frame offcuts very cheaply.
They had nice flat faces, so made a natural split line around the frame of my FWB 65. It is nice to carve, and I might even get around to finishing my custom grip project one day...

[Jimlad]

Hi

I made these grips with little trouble and limited tools, I used some Burr walnut knife scales, bought from a well known auction site.

https://imgur.com/IPmqsL7
https://imgur.com/2cc8mPT

[xbow]

Nice job.

[ccdjg]

I’ve made a few wooden grips in recent years, learning as I went along. I don’t use any fancy tools, just a Dremel, hand saw, fretsaw and a few files. This is how it went with my last project. For me the hardest part (as always) was cutting the blanks from a large block of walnut, as I don’t have a band saw and anyway it would require one with a cutting depth of up to 10cm, which would be out of my league. However you can now buy moderately sized walnut blanks off the Bay, which makes life a lot easier. In this project I needed particularly wide blanks and so had to cut my own from a large walnut block with a hand saw, which was pretty tedious and hot work.






After smoothing the surfaces flat by rubbing on a sheet of coarse emery paper, holes were drilled to locate the plates onto the gun’s grip frame and the outline was marked out and cut out roughly with a fretsaw. Then the plates were screwed in place on the gun and the edges precisely matched to the grip frame by filing and sanding.




Curves, contours etc. can then be added as required, and it is surprising how quick this can be using only a Dremel and files.





Chequering may not be needed, but if it is then there is no reason why you can’t do it yourself. I am no expert, but it is not too difficult to do a passable job using homemade chequering tools, information about which can easily be found on the internet. I used to use a homemade chequering tools made from broken bent triangular files, which gave good service for a several projects, but after my wife bought me a couple of professional tools last Christmas things improved a lot. I find it useful to screw the grip plates to a heavy board for the chequering process, as it gives you more stability and you can turn the work round easily as you need. It just needs care and a lot of patience.



Finally you can oil the plates, or as I prefer, use a few coats of thinned-down clear matt polyurethane varnish.