Grip Repair

 I have an old pistol from the 1920's that has a small piece missing from the left grip panel. It wouldn't be much of a big deal except for the fact that the small piece that is missing has the job of holding a pin in place that is the pivot point for an internal spring toggle. Here's the beginnings of the repair. I glued a chunk of Mahogany onto the Walnut grip. Maybe not the smartest choice of wood but it was what I had on hand.

This next photo shows the piece that is missing. You can kind of see the pin in the shadows (circled), and is starting to come out a bit.

I was concerned that the sanding-down process might cause the glued-on piece of wood to snap off, as there wasn't much of a contact patch to glue to. Fortunately things held together.

The contour is almost right. The grip panel doesn't quite fit yet.

A bit more sanding and it fits! It just needs a bit more fine tuning.

Some checkering was applied using a jeweler's file.

Below are a few photos of the finished product. I stained the new part with a stain I had in the shop but the color is still a bit lighter than the original grip color. At least that pivot pin won't be backing out anymore.

An unfortunate decision made by some previous owner to chrome- or nickel-plate the pistol has diminished its value by quite a bit. Of course, I don't know what the pistol looked like prior to the plating job. It could have been a mess. In any event, the pistol is still a cool historic piece.

Below shows a better view of my attempt at checkering the new piece.