Router duplicator for grips

[beezapilot]

Looking around for plans / ideas / existing technology to build a small router driven duplicator for revolver grips. I know the trend is for CNC, but that may be beyond my capacity to use on a casual basis. Anyone have one that they've built in the past, recommendations for plans, general advice?

[gunther]

A few years ago, there was a local fellow who built his own. It worked great for just that purpose. A solid base, clamping for the original and the duplicate-to-be, and a pantograph holding the stylus to follow the original's contours and the router to shape the duplicate. The pantograph was made of box sectioned aluminum stock, maybe from McMaster-Carr.
Springfield armory used Blanchard lathes to duplicate rifle stocks. They are somewhat the same principle. Although the original and the workpiece rotate on their long axis, and the pantograph controls the stylus and the cutter.

[Scrounge]

Check out: https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...cio+pantograph

This guy does a build and sells a kit for a pantograph. It's a 2D machine the way he uses it, which is as a 1:1 copy of a pattern cut in sheet metal for knife blades, and parts for his fabrication business. You would need a 3rd axis of movement to do pistol grips properly unless they're pretty thin, but you can get a good idea of how to go about doing it for the pantograph portion of the build.

A guy named Harold Hoffman had quite a bit to say about a bunch of gunsmithing topics, and you can find what he says about duplication of parts in wood or plastic here: https://ia800200.us.archive.org/6/it...Publishers.pdf

Or just search on his name and gunsmith or duplication to get access to most of (or possibly all, by now) of his writing on the subject. I am not a professional gunsmith, so can't tell you if what he's written will help you, but I've collected all his stuff that I can lay hands on just in case... The pdf above is just a little bit fuzzy but you should be able to build his device if you think it will work for you.

HTH!

Bill

[deltaenterprizes]

Google Les Brooks, he has plans for a stock duplicator that might work for grips.