carving on pistol grip blanks

[t-townwilson]

A potential customer has asked me about carving on a couple of pistol grips for a customer of his. He wants text, I think, that he plans to fill with a mineral filling of some sort. I haven't seen the blanks yet, but I assume they will have a curved top. I plan to make a sled of some sort, and wonder about using "conform" feature. I worry about experimenting on an expensive blank. I thought I might bandsaw a prototype of the blank for practicing. Any wisdom from others who might have done this already?

[lynnfrwd]

This is not an easy task. I hate this question/project more than others.

[blhutchens]

I have not done any carving on grips/gunstocks that are already made. I would scan or find the files for the pistol grips and carve new ones, much easier and if you mess up on the other ones you are going to be doing it anyway.
I think Berg came up with something to do it, I was too skeert to try!!!! I didn't want to buy $250 plus gunstock.

[bergerud]

Can you scan the grips?