Jay Scott Faux-Stag Grips

[ithacaartist]

I'm revisiting a pair of Jay Scott grips in the faux stag-horn version. I scored them over a year ago from an eBay auction, and they were quite low in price. My intention, established after I found out how thick they were, was to take down the plastic "stag" part in dimension to something more reasonable, and apply a checkered pattern to them. I addressed the right grip first, but encountered a couple of problems with my plan. I'm continuing, mostly to eliminate this from my TD list, but think I might wind up with some decent shooter grips after all. I thought I'd take any interested forum-ites along on this little journey...

These grips are constructed of a wood base against the frame, and a layer of whitish composite bonded to the top surface of the wood. The plastic part is heavily textured and quite thick. In the pics, I'm comparing the thickness of a Jay Scott grip right out of the box to an original grip's. The original measures about 5/16", the Scott, about 9/16"--a difference very close to 1/4". This means that a Luger with the Scott grips installed as-is will have a handle that is 1 3/4" thick, total--which is quite a wad when held in the hand!

The plastic part of the right grip I worked on last year had a crack in it already, and was losing its bond with the wood base underneath. It broke again during the process of removing it for the purpose of re-bonding to the base. This accounts for the hairline cracks visible, though I may be able to dress or color them somehow to minimize, if not eliminate, their visual presence.

My next activity will include belt sanding the horny protrusions from the molded plastic portion, which will result in about 1/16" of plastic remaining, which I will checker. The pattern will fade out at the edges of the white, leaving a smooth wood "border". I'll update progress when it happens with more pics.