Colt model 1903 pocket hammerless pistols

I've done several of these for a client over the last year. Here are pictures of two of them. Two of the pictures are of a completed pistol after plating. The others are ones I took quickly before I shipped them out.

The pearl grips were an after thought by the dealer. I was working with the original grips when I engraved them, so unfortunately the new grips cover some of my work. I was unaware he was doing this.

I will note that every one of these guns and various parts cut differently. Some were really soft and I almost felt like I was cutting silver when using pneumatics. Others felt really hard. There were also differences between slide and frame. None were difficult to cut, just noting differences in the metal. I just thought it strange how there'd be such differences in the metal from gun to gun by the same manufacturer.

Nice job Bert.

todd

Nice work Bert! Those old Colts are fun to do - there's one in my safe waiting for the right design to fall out of my head.

Bert,Well done, keep up the good work. J.J.

Very nice:clapping:

Bert,Well done,keep up the good work. J.J.

Great job Bert!

Bert, lovely work. As you know, when engravers get together we talk point geometry, metal finishes, hardness of material and difficulty of inlay. Could you spend a minute or two on the holding of the various parts for engraving. Thanks Fred

Thanks Fred. I keep it simple. The slides for auto style pistols, I typically just use leather pads to hold between the jaws of my vice. When doing the sides of the slide, I have pieces of hardwood that I have cut to allow me to position the slide in the center of my scope/vice jaws. I use a leather pad on the top side.

When doing the frame, my setup is very simple too. I use the pin plate for the vice jaws. Then I use the long padded pins in the accessory kits that you can buy. Its simple, easy and quick. The versatily of the pin plate and padded pins allow you to adjust the pins according to the part geometry. I will take some pictures later to explain better.

Another option I use quite frequently on difficult parts is the GRS thermolock. Its pretty hard to beat this stuff when you need to make a fixture to hold weird parts. I just used it on a Uberti 1866 yellow boy I engraved. It was the best way to make a set of jaws that I could hold the rifle reciever at any location and keep it centered under the scope. I used a ton of the thermolock to make it, but it only took me about 30 minutes to get it setup so it would work. I'd highly recommend getting a large bag of the stuff and keep it handy. I use a paint stripper heat gun to warm the stuff up.

Beautiful work. Very much like Colt did them originally and I really like that!

Great job Bert!