New product: Radom wood grip reproductions

[DonVoigt]

Ollie,
I've been searching the last week for thick boards for making repro "erma kit" boxes.
Found them on ebay.
Did a quick search for birch lumber, over 700 hits.

This one looks like it would be great for your grips:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PACKAGES-OF-...QInRTApWS0QSqQ

[Olle]

Originally Posted by DonVoigt

Ollie,
I've been searching the last week for thick boards for making repro "erma kit" boxes.
Found them on ebay.
Did a quick search for birch lumber, over 700 hits.

This one looks like it would be great for your grips:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PACKAGES-OF-...QInRTApWS0QSqQ

I believe that's one of the sellers I emailed about custom lengths. Everything pre-cut is in multiples of 12", so I would waste a lot of wood if I bought it like that. Unless I buy an 8' or 10' board, of coarse, but the shipping cost would be horrendous.

So what kind of wood are you going to use for the Erma boxes? I was thinking about making more repros (probably Femaru 37M next time) and have been picking around in the stores for something that resembles the original type. Birch worked great for the Radom grips, but a lot of the higher quality grips seem to be made of beech or similar. I talked to two local vendors about ordering some, but they said that they quit fooling with it as the quality is usually too poor to do anything with. I don't know if they just had bad luck with it, but they both recommended finding somebody who imports European beech (=more expensive).

BTW: I saw a discussion about the Erma boxes, and I thought that the insert looked like a perfect candidate for CNC-cutting. Just let me know if you need any help with that, it's a pretty simple thing to do if you can just provide a good drawing.

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by Olle

I was thinking about making more repros...

When I first saw your ad I immediately thought of the vertically-grooved (or corrigated) Russina Luger grips. I have a set in black plastic [possibly Bakelite] and tried to interest a member in doing them in dark walnut but with no success...

I'm going to be doing a set in walnut for a S&W model 41 with a short barrel [think Loveless] but got into shortening the barrel first. Wood work always comes second here.

[Olle]

Originally Posted by sheepherder

When I first saw your ad I immediately thought of the vertically-grooved (or corrigated) Russina Luger grips. I have a set in black plastic [possibly Bakelite] and tried to interest a member in doing them in dark walnut but with no success...

I'm going to be doing a set in walnut for a S&W model 41 with a short barrel [think Loveless] but got into shortening the barrel first. Wood work always comes second here.

Is this a kind that was originally done in walnut, or do you want your own lookalike set in walnut? There's a lot of work to do before you can flip the switch, so making a one-off set is actually easier to do by hand.

It would be more feasible if I could find an accurate 3D model of the grips, that's how I made the 1911s. Now when I have located the model, I can use it as a blank canvas where I can apply pretty much anything. I figure the Luger grips can be made the same way, if I had a good model of standard grips I could modify them in different ways.

[DonVoigt]

Originally Posted by Olle

I believe that's one of the sellers I emailed about custom lengths. Everything pre-cut is in multiples of 12", so I would waste a lot of wood if I bought it like that. Unless I buy an 8' or 10' board, of coarse, but the shipping cost would be horrendous.

So what kind of wood are you going to use for the Erma boxes? I was thinking about making more repros (probably Femaru 37M next time) and have been picking around in the stores for something that resembles the original type. Birch worked great for the Radom grips, but a lot of the higher quality grips seem to be made of beech or similar. I talked to two local vendors about ordering some, but they said that they quit fooling with it as the quality is usually too poor to do anything with. I don't know if they just had bad luck with it, but they both recommended finding somebody who imports European beech (=more expensive).

BTW: I saw a discussion about the Erma boxes, and I thought that the insert looked like a perfect candidate for CNC-cutting. Just let me know if you need any help with that, it's a pretty simple thing to do if you can just provide a good drawing.

Ollie,
using CNC would be just too easy, I'll be doing it the old fashioned way the Germans made them, with a vertical mill.

Wood will be the secret sauce, the originals I've seen are clear, off white hardwood. Not beech, there is no "figure". I 'm going with one of the maples.

You are quite right that these "simple" reproductions are not cheap, neither in material nor in labor required.

[Olle]

Originally Posted by DonVoigt

Ollie,
using CNC would be just too easy, I'll be doing it the old fashioned way the Germans made them, with a vertical mill.

Wood will be the secret sauce, the originals I've seen are clear, off white hardwood. Not beech, there is no "figure". I 'm going with one of the maples.

You are quite right that these "simple" reproductions are not cheap, neither in material nor in labor required.

What? How hard can it possibly be to make a plain ol' wooden box?

Making the grips is actually the easy part, developing them is what takes time and I guess you can say it's a labor of love. This particular grip style has been in the back of my head for years, and now I finally have the means to do it. But just like with your boxes, there's hours of measuring, head scratching, sketching, drawing, prototypes, test fitting, sourcing materials and so on before you can even start making something you want to sell. I can imagine that just finding original looking hardware for your boxes would be a wild goose chase that can go on forever.

As far as materials go, have you looked at birch? The original Radom grips are said to be made of wood they salvaged from freight pallets and crates, basically just a mix of what they could find. I don't know if that's true, but I found that birch was a very good match to my sample set. I looked at several boards in the vendor's warehouse, and a lot of them were almost totally white without visible grain. I fell in love with it pretty much as soon as I started working with it. It's really hard and dense and cuts cleanly (very much like hickory), so I figure it would be perfect for boxes. If you haven't tried it, buy a few pieces and check it out. I think you'll like it. Still, hard maple would also work well if you just pick around and find some clear pieces.