I began cutting the grip slots in the sleeve for this one today, here's what I got done:
I masked off where I wanted them. These will be about 1/4" wide and centered about 1/2" apart, leaving around 3/8" in between them.
I'll start them like usual, by drilling 1/4" holes in the drill press:
After drilling the holes, I switched to the Dremel rotary tool and a cut off wheel:
I would normally use a reinforced wheel, but I am currently out of them, so I used a heavy duty style instead. It made it through cutting these grips, but that's about all I'll get out of his one, I think:
The grips slots, still rough finished:
I spent about an hour filing these by hand and got them presentable:
They still need to be hand sanded with some fine grit paper, but I'll do that when I sand and polish the sleeve itself.
I ran a cylinder hone through the sleeve to de-burr the inside of the slots and test fit:
I can see I'll have to repaint the 5" extension already....oh well, that's not that hard to do.
Now I just need to do something on the bottom:
I really don't want to use the same size grips on the bottom, but it might look more uniform that way....I'd like to do something larger, just to make it more comfortable to hold.