Recent content by mrcabinet

Some of you may remember my post a while back about the sad Mdl. 19 that I traded for. Well the shop got it done sooner than expected, so I was able to pick her up yesterday. The pitting on the right side was worse than I originally thought, so I opted for their satin finish. It doesn't hide all...

Oh Mr. A - a Taurus??? Tsk tsk tsk.... Seriously though, that's a wise choice for that purpose. I always had a #8 birdshot round lined up as the first round in my .357 that I carried while hunting in Eastern Oregon. Several rattlers were dispatched with that. I would say any .410 load of 7 1/2...

Waiting a month to a month and a half to get her back will seem like forever, but it's better than sending it out and waiting five to eight months like the big shops are quoting right now. It's like when you started dating a new girl for a couple of weeks, and you really like her, and then she...

Fortunately it was rescued before the finish got any worse. There really is just some very minor pitting on the right side of the top strap. The rest of it is just surface ugliness. The Smith seemed pretty confident that it would all polish out without destroying the stamping. Worse case is that...

I ran across this old girl (1971) at a somewhat local show last weekend. On the outside, it has the typical "patina" of a gun that sat in an underwear drawer in a house with no AC. I asked to take a closer look, and that's when the seller informed me that it "had some issues". It would only...

The 89443 number is an assembly number, which ensured that the yoke got mated to the correct frame after bluing, etc. The actual serial number is the one on the butt.

Same gun without and with medallions. I wanted to add a little Colt snobbery to it, but I can go either way when it comes to medallions.

Thanks Tallball! I was going to add some pics for the op, so thank you for posting that link. Mine is still going strong, and has turned into one of our favorites for "wheelgun Wednesday" at the range.

I have the RIA branded Alpha 9, and really enjoy it. I consider it to be better made than the Charter Arms, EAA or Rossi that are out there. If you want to slick up the action a bit, you can check out my thread here...

I haven't ventured into revolver grips yet. Maybe someday.

Thanks all for the compliments. Yeah, at first I thought I was cheating, but then I looked at the time spent just getting a first pass to run good, and realized that wasn't the case at all. I usually have a couple hours into the cad/cnc process before I even run a piece of wood. Then there's...

I am happy to share - no secrets here. Just don't ask for my CAD or CNC files..... To start with, I always wear vinyl gloves when working with Super Glue. I learned that lesson the hard way. Secondly, I attach a small block on the back of the grips with double sided tape. That way I can hang on...

Years ago I made everything by hand with jigs for cutting and routing. I'm older and wiser now, with much less patience, so I use a small cnc router to do the machining, then do the shaping by hand. This is a set of Hi Power grips made out of Chechen wood. I went old school on the finish and...

Here's a couple more more to compare - stabilized Spalted Hackberry and Wenge. Stabilized/Superglue.

The grips that aren't stabilized have a Super Glue finish. That's four or five layers, lightly sanded in between coats, then sanded to 600 grit and finished off on a buffing wheel. The stabilized wood does not have a finish. Essentially, stabilizing "plasticizes" the wood, so these are just...