S&W grip repair

[imashooter2]

I picked up a 629 that had a couple of big chips off the heel of the grips. They weren't worth a whole lot in that condition, so I thought I'd take a crack at repairing them over the holidays.

Was:


Carving the Goncalo Alves to match the insert with a crappy Xacto knife was a bit of a challenge. A better color match would have been nice too. If nothing else, a project like this clearly demonstrates the difference between a hack and a craftsman.
The results:

The patch is clearly visible, but from a couple feet away it doesn't leap out at you. They'll be functional for sure.



I decided to go with a simple oil finish rather than redo the polyurethane because I like oil and I may as well make myself happy. Nothing fancy, just a half a dozen coats of thinned boiled linseed. I've heard it said that oil really pools on the checkering, so I used a toothbrush to push the drying rag down into the grooves to clean them after every application. I'm pretty pleased all in all.

[brian]

A for the effort. but i have to say they did'nt look that bad from the before pictures.

[imashooter2]

The chips would chew my hand and I couldn't just sand them out without going way below the line of the back strap. In the 'Was" pics, look at the heel line of the left scale compared to the heel line of the right. There was a lot of wood gone.