King Wood shifter handles

Decided to make some real wood handles for the Charger. Uncle Chris bought the car with many loose ends, and this was one of them.

King wood can take a thread its so dense so I use metal shaping tools.

Pretty happy with the results. Only took me most of the day Saturday to make them.

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very nice !

Luxo car nice. Light years better than the cheap wood grain genuine plastic Ma Mopar gave us.

Robert

Beautiful job.

Very nice,what a talent.

Thanks guys.

Ive been told to make a few set and try to sell them. Just dont know what to charge cause they are quite labor intensive

Very nice. It takes talent to make something so nice.

Beautiful piece. I don't think you'll have a hard time selling any.

Kinda depends on how you value your time and how many you want to do. You'll sell more if they are inexpensive but you'll work you ass off to fill demand. It will go faster the next couple you do and if you make fixtures etc.... If you bought a cheapish CNC router you could rough them out pretty quick.
Very nice work by the way. I figure my time is worth $50 an hour for machine work. You're a craftsman doing stuff others can't so your skills are valuable, even if you're doing it for fun. If a set took three to four hours, I'd want to charge at least $150-200

I have a side hustle where I repair aluminum oil pans for certain BMW's and charge $125-150 and it takes me about two and a half hours to do start to finish and is mostly labor making and fitting parts. But, a new part from BMW is $400+ and it will fail at some point where as mine won't. I kept pretty busy over the winter but I'd say I have less than a 50% success rate on inquiries. Some folks just don't think it is worth it because of the cost. If I charged $50 I'd never have any free time. I do it for fun, earn a little extra scratch, and help others in the hobby keep their cars on the road.

this is honestly the 4th or 5th set i made, i made the set in my Demon 18 years ago in college, as well as a few extra sets i sold to buddies. I only decided to do this set cause I remembered how well the last ones came out in oak, and cocobolo, and ebony. this set is king wood so its harder than cocobolo.

I think ill use a ratted out shifter as a guide next time. was pretty nerve racking making it fit this well on a decent pistol grip B body console shifter.

Fantastic job!

You might want to consider adding brass inserts to the screw receiver side, this combined with a fine thread machine screw will alleviate screws pulling out regardless of wood type. The knurled inserts are very easy to add with a slightly undersized drilled pilot hole.

Very nice work!!

With king wood and the #6 screw, I did a test first and I couldn’t pull the threads. I actually stripped the philips head in the screw.

If I use a softer wood, yeah then a insert would be better. My oak grips aren’t inserted and they are 15 years old. I used a good 3bond silicone type glue when I put the grips on for the last time.