Put a Non-Slip Grip on A Plastic Gunstock

Gunstocks and grips made of composite, polymer, or other "new-era" plastics have been around for quite awhile now. And with the ever-increasing price of the fancy grades of gunstock timber, we’re likely to see more and more plastic as time goes by. So, if you’ve been dragging your feet over the idea of getting involved with plastic stocks, it’s time to get with the program. Of course, like most gunsmiths, I’m a big fan of blued steel and walnut.

But I eventually came to the conclusion that if the customer wants a stock made of ugly black plastic, I couldn’t afford to let his business pass me by. As in any business, the customer’s taste and desires are the only things that matter. Some of the materials’particularly the composites’used in these plastic stocks are said to be stronger and lighter than most of the wooden stocks they’ve replaced.

I’m not so sure about strength, but the composite stocks that have made their way to my bench have indeed been light in weight’and, unfortunately, most have also been pretty darn slick in the grip and forearm areas. I can just imagine what would happen if the shooter had a little perspiration on his hands or if rain or snow fell on these slippery surfaces at a time when a sure grip was needed most.

Multiple Experiments In my quest to come up with a workable solution to putting a better nonslip on a plastic gunstock or a polymer pistol grip, I tried quite a few ideas borrowed from others along with a few ideas of my own. Actually, cutting checkering into these tough composites is an idea I considered but abandoned quickly. First, if I did manage to cut through the surface of the material with a checkering tool, I had no way of knowing if the strength of the material would be compromised.

I was pretty sure, however, that the cutting edges of my checkering tools would definitely be compromised. I’ve shortened the length-ofpull on a few of these composite stocks and have seen how fast the material can dull a band-saw blade; I’ve even seen sparks coming off the area being sawn. So I wasn’t about to ruin my checkering cutters doing any experimentation. Some of the alternative methods I tried included the application of peeland-stick strips of grit-impregnated tape.

This is the stuff that’s used on stair treads or ladder rungs to keep feet from slipping during wet or icy conditions. The problem I found with these strips was a difficulty in getting both sides even before the sticky side of the tape gets stuck in place. And once they’re in place, they don’t stay

stuck for very long before they walk off the job. The next thing I tried was "wrinkle-finish paint." I sprayed it on some composite stocks while rotating them on a rotisserie-type setup and directing a hot blow-dryer onto the paint. The hot air helps the paint wrinkle up and helps to prevent runs in the finish. This produced an effective nonslip finish, but eventually the wrinkle paint will rub off in the areas where the hands are positioned the most, and then it’s back to the smooth surface once again.

The same thing will happen with paint that has grit added to it. The grit will rub off or wear thin in time and the job would have to be done over. There must, I reasoned, be something better. The Embossing Solution I’d heard about folks who were using a heat-pressing process that imparts a roughed-up surface on the polymer pistol-grip frames made by several manufacturers.

The first time I saw the end result of this process on a pistol frame I made a guess as to how it was being done, and it turned out my guess was fairly close. The pattern I saw had elongated striations of a semi-circular design in an overlapping pattern that wrapped fully around the grip frame. The pattern looked interesting, so I thought I’d try an experiment to see if I could produce the same end result.

I dug out an old "Walnut Hollow" brand electric wood-burning pen that I’d stashed away years before, and I tried my hand at making the striation pattern on a 4-inch section of 1-1/2inch-diameter black polyethylene pipe. I used a bullet-shaped tip mounted in the wood-burning pen. After several attempts, I had the process down fairly well, but it took too much time and there was a lot of going back over the work and touching up areas that needed to be filled in.

Ultimately, I concluded that this process did not give me the look or feel I was trying to achieve. My next attempt involved latheturning a couple of tips with #8-32

AMGFW09 AG DBI 2-pg Ad, New (coming directly from Belvoir)

AMGFW09 AG DBI 2-pg Ad, New (coming directly from Belvoir)

threads that would fit into the working end of the wood-burning tool. I made up several tips that were flat and a couple that had ends with a radius for dealing with the underside of curved areas such as those found on a gunstock grip. Another method of making embossing tips I tried used slotted-head brass machine screws with #8-32 threads, 5/8 inch long. The heads of these screws were either lathe-turned or filed until the bottoms of the screw slots disappeared and the top surfaces were flat.

Some of the tips were left round and others were filed square or triangular to get into tight areas or maintain a straight-line border. The definition of the word "embossing," by the way, means to "raise the surface" of an area you’re working with. Thus, the next step in making an embossing tip is producing a surface on the tip that will impart a raised gripping surface on the area to be embossed. Brass is an easy metal to cut, file, or turn into a desired shape.

I used a 20and a 30-line-per-inch metal checkering file to cut across-hatch pattern into the faces of these now-flat screw heads. If you don’t have metal-checkering files on hand or don’t want to invest in these files, thread-chasing files will work just as well on the soft brass screws. These can be purchased for less than $10 with various lineper-inch designations on each of the four sides of the chasing file.

If you have a steady hand and a fairly accurate eye, you could also cut the crosshatch pattern with a triangular needle file. To help you see how the line cutting is progressing, it helps to first darken the cutting surface with a black felt-tip pen so you can see when the top of the cross-hatch pattern is pointed up and maintain even cutting and spacing.

Getting a Grip Now that you have several embossing heads made for your wood-burning tool (or electric soldering pen), you’re ready to practice your embossing technique. As was mentioned earlier, I practiced on some black plastic pipe to establish patterns and learn how much pressure to place on the pen to get the result I wanted. Because there is some smoke involved with this process, I placed a small fan nearby to blow the smoke away from my eyes and nose.

The process is rather simple and, once you develop a feel for it, it goes quite quickly. All of the patterns in this embossing process are "fill-instyle" patterns. What this means is that you first establish a border and then emboss the area inside the borders. As you go along pressing the heated tip into the top surface of the polymer, you’ll get a buildup of plastic in your heated embossing tip.

When this occurs, you only need to use a small wire brush to clean the softened plastic out of the cross-hatching on the tip. For me, I found that I liked the 30 line-per-inch spacing on the embossing tip, but some of the gun owners I’ve done this for wanted a rougher surface and opted for the texture created by the 20 line-per-inch tip. It’s a good idea to have several samples on hand to let your customer get a feel for the texture when the grip is done. This is where your plastic-pipe samples will come in handy.

Most of the work in these photos shows wraparound full-control patterns. There’s no reason why a somewhat fancier look can’t be part of the plan. For the fleur-de-lis pattern in the photo, the outline was drawn in place with a white lead pencil and then filled in using various shaped tips on the wood-burning tool. Conclusions Once your embossing tips are made, they’ll last virtually forever. If they ever get dull or rounded over, a few touch-up swipes with the metalcheckering file will point them up again.

This process has been successful with all the polymer and plastic stocks I’ve tried it on, as well as on a compound-bow grip and the black plastic scales on a hunting knife. The only stocks I’ve found that this process will not work on are those made of fiberglass, especially if the fiberglass contains Kevlar as apart of the composite.

The heat from the wood-burning pen is not sufficient to raise the surface on these stocks, so I’ll continue to use the wrinkle paint on them until I discover a better way to emboss this type of stock. I