Ivory and substitutes

[shorty500]

Have to agree with CaryC, am a holly fan if not doing the real McCoy

[ChiefTJS]

Cary- I'll be a very happy man when you get to feeling like making grips again and I won't ask for the Micarta, you feel free to make me whatever you like best.

[ezekiel38]

Thank you for showing the different kinds of "white" grips. Ivory against the micarta and other materials definitely standout as the real mccoy. As a younger shooter always stayed away from Ivory grip offers as I didn't see very many real sets, as far as I knew, and there was no place to be schooled in such matters. Thank you!

I have new Vz micartas on K frames and they are great, as it is previously mentioned they are tough!

[jeffer]

I really like the white micarta from Reeder.

[sandhiller]

How big of a piece of micarta does it take to make a set of single or double action grips? Sure like the way the antique colored ones look. Was looking at the knife making supply places web sight.

[caryc]

Jun 9, 2016 21:00:44 GMT -5 sandhiller said:

How big of a piece of micarta does it take to make a set of single or double action grips? Sure like the way the antique colored ones look. Was looking at the knife making supply places web sight.

1/2" X 4 1/4" X 2 1/4" will make one grip panel. You can get away with 2 1/8" in width if you don't mind cutting it close. That's for plow handle grips.

For SBH or Bisley you need to make that 4 1/2" in length.

Of course you can get away with a 1" thick piece if you have a good enough saw to slice it into two pieces for a set of grips. I use a Woodslicer blade in my band saw and the kerf is really small. I lose only about 1/16" sawing a block in half. Some of the places will actually have bigger pieces than what they advertise for knife handles. You just need to call and talk to them.

The pic below shows how I take an angled cut off the back of a blank to save as much of the face as possible. A good saw and blade will do this fine. It's also possible to make that angled cut like that to get two grips out of a 3/4" thick piece of material if you're using something with very subtle grain like American Holly or black Micarta.

The bottom pic shows the jig I use to make that angled cut. The screws in the back of the jig make it adjustable so you can get any angle you want.

[sandhiller]

Thanks for the info Cary.

[ezekiel38]

Thanks Cary I enjoy your input, it's always valuable! Good things shared!