With regard to the making the mounts, it was a combination. I liked the sideplate and guard so I used the original pieces as patterns for investment casting. I wanted the designs of the butplate and thumbpiece to be different than the original, so I carved masters out of polyurethane foam modeling board and then used these for the investment casting. The casting process involved making wax injection molds, injecting waxes and then in this case, sending the waxes to a foundry for casting. The silver parts then needed to be cleaned up using gravers, scrapers, stones etc. to get good definition and surface finish. I might add that I used silicon rubber molds for the wax injection process. It works well for complex surfaces and low volume runs such as this. I'll see if I can't get some pictures of the masters I carved and the molds, waxes etc. Oh, when using the original parts as masters, I had to build up some areas up prior to making the injection molds. For example there was some damage to the grip rail and a few other places that I built up with tape and thin cardboard first. I also added to the grip rail to account for shrinkage. I think I also used plumbers putty as well to fix some problem areas. One difficulty with castings you get from places that have used original parts as patterns is that they don't generally do anything with the problem areas prior to making the molds. It's a lot easier to make a fix in the first place.
