A journey in ebony

[45flint]

One of my Beeman Westley Richards Highest Possible came without grips. I have made many grips but this is the first time in Ebony. A wood shop near me had these scraps and they sure looked very black. Would be the perfect wood to duplicate the thicker grips like the early horn ones. Would love to checker them but not in my skill level. First need to duplicate a handle missing from my case, then on to the grips. Wish me luck!

[Re01312]

One of my Beeman Westley Richards Highest Possible came without grips. I have made many grips but this is the first time in Ebony. A wood shop near me had these scraps and they sure looked very black. Would be the perfect wood to duplicate the thicker grips like the early horn ones. Would love to checker them but not in my skill level. First need to duplicate a handle missing from my case, then on to the grips. Wish me luck!

Good Luck - Your grips will be great

[rapidresponse1]

veru good

[micky2]

That is just great wood for doing your grips, good luck with doing them.

[AC99]

Good luck with your project.
Ebony is a very hard wood and difficult to work using normal hand tools due to irregular grain structure encountered in some off-cuts but you may be lucky with the blank you have bought.
I wish you well.

[isobar]

i'm looking forward to the outcome of this project

[45flint]

Making progress, ebony is like no other wood I have ever worked. Fined grained and so much resin? I used a dremel as always and this fine black powder seemed to stick to everything, especially when sanding. Look at my N95 mask so glad I used that on this. I first made a simple lift handle for the lid of my new pistol case. Had screw holes where the original was installed, so I will use the same holes. Beautiful, black very little grain even seen. I have made the pistol grip full size to the edge of bevel. Like to install before I finely fit. This pistol is a bit of a mystery to me, came from the Beeman auction with no grips yet it is just in amazing shape. Hardly any use or abuse, what happen to the grips? They got to be in someone’s work bench? This pistol is the last form and the grips were terribly thin, I have grips from another pistol to compare. I think it was cost cutting from the horns grips on the first model? I will probably sand these a little thinner as I do a final fit but it will fill your hand like a pistol should. Need to order a grip screw to continue. That scrap of ebony was a great buy, should be able to get another set of grips from it. Later.

[micky2]

Hi Steve, those grips are starting to looking good on the HP, and when you get the screw to join them together you will be able to shoot it. that is the best HP l have seen. strange that it didn't have any grips, you would have thought that Beeman would have found some when he owned it.

[45flint]

Hi Steve, those grips are starting to looking good on the HP, and when you get the screw to join them together you will be able to shoot it. that is the best HP l have seen. strange that it didn't have any grips, you would have thought that Beeman would have found some when he owned it.

Makes no sense that Beeman or someone went to the trouble of putting white wax in the embossing on a pistol with no grips? I guess the good part for me is I think it went pretty cheap in the auction, couldn’t believe it when the bidding stopped.

[45flint]

Getting closer, I make the inner spacers by cutting thin strips of wood shaping them and gluing those to the grips. I assume with tooling there is an easier way to do this but I’m here with my dremel and a table saw. Hand fitted there is no slop like with the originals which can slightly move when you shoot. Got the grip screw now. Need to take a lot of thickness out and fit the edges finely to the grip bevel. Couple days away, but will be slow and tedious fine fitting, but it’s come a long way from a stick of ebony. Can’t understand why Beeman never took the time to do this!! Lol

[AC99]

That's looking good Steve.
You seen to have done amazingly well with your apparently limited resources!

[45flint]

Finished, a lot of wood removed thinning it down. I think a huge improvement over the thin originals. Was a tedious journey but totally worth it. Pistol has a grip it deserves. The dremel is the best tool ever devised by man!

[isobar]

job done and nice work.

[nishijin]

Excellent work

[ccdjg]

Very nice quality work Steve, understated and in keeping with the character of the gun. But you've just got to remove that tag!