New product: Radom wood grip reproductions

[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.