Make handgun grips/knife handles out of pallets?

A good source for mahogany pallets is a piano store that sells pianos made in Indonesia. They make their pallets out of the scrap left over from making the pianos. Its rough sawn but a planer will cut it to the thickness you want and bring out the grain pattern also.
 
Lots of good info here. Have re-purposed many a pallet in my day. Most are made of hardwood. Have some really nice black cherry in my stack that I haven't found a use for as yet.

One word of caution on the exotics, wear at minimum a dust mask when machining or sanding as the dust from some is toxic.

Great tip on the piano pallet BTW.

One more place to find great pieces is from wood flooring installation scraps.
 
Pallets are made out of whatever wood, scrap or otherwise, is both cheap and handy.

I've seen pallets of local manufacture made out of cottonwood ....

I salvaged the wood from a pallet that a bunch of Jatoba ("Brazilian Cherry) wood flooring came in .... it was made of a a "lower grade" of the same wood .... I thought the spalting and stark contrast between the sapwood and heartwood was really beautiful ..... I made a a tabletop for my brother, among other things, out of it.

If you are going to use oak, try to use white oak ..... red oak is open grained and does not weather well, swelling much more with changes in humidity...

Pieces of wood small enough for grips and knife handles are not that costly around here- even small scraps of really exotic stuff like bloodwood or lacewood can be had for a buck or two at the local woodworking store ..... I imagine this can't be the only region of the country that has those.......

ID of common woods used in flooring:

http://woodfloors.org/gallery.aspx
 
Seconday use wood from Goodwill !!

Yesterday I was able to find some very nice pieces of Ebony, American Black Walnut and Rosewood, at Goodwill. Price were very reasonable on the items made from these woods. The Walnut was in a set of salad bowls and the Rosewood, was in a set of candle holders. All will go into my powder horns, knife handles and Single-Six grips. .... ;)

Be Safe !!!
 
Found Wood

I didn't read all the posts, so if I repeat anything I apologize.

I think pallet wood is a very good idea for practicing on the small parts you are talking about. But you have got to realize that they don't waste good wood on pallets. And don't limit yourself to just pallets, I know Goodwill was mentioned in a previous post, I have fished large pieces of wood out of creeks, farmers burn piles, dunage piles, even dumpsters. The metal fab. Business down the street from where I work often has large piles of wood from shipments, so ask some one if they need help getting rid of some. What can they say, NO ? But if you keep your eye open you can find wood in a lot of places, and maybe some really nice grain patterns to work with to. Just stay away from nails and staples.

Then on the other hand, it has been my experience with pallets that can be more trouble than their worth. I have watched boards literally tie themselves in knots going through the table saw. Sometimes all you make are sticks and sawdust. My reloading room is a work in progress, but almost everything in it is from "Found Wood". When I get a little closer to being done, I'll post some pic's.
 
Like Clark, I have sawdust on me too. Been making some wooden spatulas for Christmas. Mostly using Cherry, but some Walnut.

As for pistol grips, the first ones I made (back at the dawn of time) were from Pine. They actually came out pretty good. These days I usually have a good supply of Cherry, Walnut, Red and White Oak, Persimmon, Pecan, Mesquite, Rosewood, and this and that. And I have a pile of scraps in Bloodwood, Redheart, Bubinga, Ebony, Bois D'Arc, and others. I don't make many pistol grips, unless someone asks (and leaves the pistol with me), so most of my made stuff is boxes, bowls, beds, rolling pins, and whatever sounds like fun. Prettiest wood I've used lately was Redheart (rolling pin, French style), with Bubinga (salt keeper) close behind. All of these woods can be bought at a Woodcraft store in any major city. You can shop among the woods till you find what you want in the size you want. For small pieces, like for pistol grips, the price won't be bad (10 or 12 bucks). Or you can shop online.

Whatever you use, I'd suggest something with tight grain. Cherry, for instance, has tight grain. Those types will hold a polish better than the wood with open grains (red oak, for instance). Walnut burl is tight grained, but general Walnut often has open grain. Bubinga and Zebrawood would look good on a pistol grip. Rosewood will too. And if you can find a chunk of Australian Blackwood (shiny black, with ivory threads), try that. Hard to find big pieces of that, but small pieces are usually available at Woodcraft.

Well...back to my spatulas.
 
How can I identify oak vs. pine?
Click to expand...

Hardwood is dense, therefore heavy. Opposite with softwood.

I saved some dunnage from a project this summer that is some nice 8/qtr oak. Looks like quarter sawn to my untrained eye...

Pallet material may or may not be native to an area, depends on where the truck it came off of was from!
 
Woodworkers care about wood and the rest of the world doesn't. The general public just likes this or that because it's pretty. The OP, if he's clueless about softwood and hardwood and the differences, probably isn't ready to do any serious woodworking. Still, I'm sure he could make some pistol grips. It isn't that tough to do, though it is tough to do it really well.

It gives me pleasure to make something pretty and/or useful, and I'm sure the OP will feel just as good about it.

To the OP. Make the first set of grips from soft white pine. When you have that knowledge behind you, then move to the wood you want.
 
Clark, I used to make my own bows years back. I have had dealings with carpenters over the years and most just know enough to pound a nail through wood. It probably takes a machinist or maybe a cabinet maker to understand the mechanical properties of wood. I noticed "Quarter sawn" mentioned on this thread. I never met a carpenter under 55 that understood what this is, and very few I could explain it to. Wood working is like the sink or swim lesson. Either you pick it up or not. Stop wasting your money on the books.
 
Quote:
How can I identify oak vs. pine?
Click to expand...
Cut a piece, and smell the sawdust

Pine will smell like, well, Pine

Oak will smell like dirty socks (Tannic Acid)

If it's dry, hardwoods produced a finer, more powdery dust

Look around in the woods where you live and you may be able to find some wild Cherry that would be gorgeous, but you'd need to wait for it to dry.

Small "waste" pieces of Cherry add a unique sweet flavor to smoked foods too
 
I had forgotten all about this thread.

I made my dad a pocket knife with kingwood handles. Kingwood was probably not a good first choice and took a lot of patience but they came out OK. Also did a knife with leopardwood handles that came about better, learned a little bit about burn and tooling marks on that one.

A friend of mine cut down a blackjack oak tree in his yard. He doesn't need any of it and has it laying around for firewood or future use and I'm welcome to as much as I can carry. So I have enough for scales for weeks. Also planning on making an already circular log into some coasters for what should be an easy project.

The other day I bought some big disks of live oak cut from a small trunk for $4 a piece. The top side is already waxed and sealed. They were used for a wedding in some way. The plan with those is to finish the other side and stick some legs on them for some side tables. If it doesn't work well, I'm out $20 for the stack and I'll have probably 60 lbs. of material to re use.

Finally, I'm working on a pair of grips for my CZ 75 from some desert ironwood. The hard woods are just really pretty to me :eek: Difficult to work with, but not impossible - not that I can be a judge for that kind of thing right now, but I'm satisfied so far.

I didn't have a new year's resolution, but I am going to school this year for gunsmithing, so I figured I'd start into some woodworking projects and maybe learns ome things before I get up there. Or at least enjoy what I'm making now.
 
I thought all pallets were pine until I worked in a warehouse that shipped heavy machinery one Summer. All kinds of stuff and some of it had decent figure.
 
Back in the dark ages I would uncrate new Japanese motorcycles and set them up for the showroom. One of the guys that worked at a neighboring business would come by and collet much of the left over wood. He claimed that it was made from some variety of teak. So if there's a bike shop in your area that sets up it's own bikes. That may be a source of free and exotic wood...

Tony
 
A friend at work used pallet wood of various types to carve fancy custom spoons and salad forks. Very nice work. I bought a set of three in different fancy woods for my Mom as a gift one year.
He says he finds a lot of nice wood types in pallets.
 
Not pallet material, but some might find it humorous ....

A friend gave me a nice chunk of ironwood, I split it with a hacksaw and went to work on a set of pistol grips. Progression went: 80-100 grit sandpaper, chain saw file, wood rasp, hoof rasp, wood chisel (mistake), hatchet,hoof rasp, wood rasp .... poot, gave 'em away to someone who wanted to make smaller stuff. I did get so far as to rough in a palm shelf and thumb rest, and I mean rough in! They were recognizable, but that's about all....
 
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