First Time Stippling

It's actually done with a soldering iron. For the texture I chose I used a small needle pointed brass tip. You have to of course pay attention around your outline edges but when doing the rest of the work it's many quick little pokes with the fine tip. It melts the very surface of the polymer just enough to rough up the texture. Some go over it with fine sandpaper after that but I didn't find it necessary. I shot mine before doing so and was very pleased with the texture as it was. I figured it would be easy enough to scuff the surface if needed after the first test run.

I had soldering irons I already used for their intended purpose, however I bought a new kit for this project. I didn't want the tips of my soldering irons gunked and they were much bigger and bulkier both in physical size and the tips. I picked up a little kit at Radio Shack that had multiple tips of different shape, size, and material for $14.99. Not bad when you add that to a few hours of my time vs. $200+ for grip tape that will wear out.

There are several videos on YouTube if you are interested in actually seeing it done. Lots of different ways to go about it depending on your desired outcome. Some of the patterns with bigger different shaped tips look good, but would require a whole different level of dedication. The sandpaper effect is what I wanted. It was completely a function thing for me, not to look cool, though I did want the guns to look presentable when finished. Some of the stipple jobs you see really look butchered and would have to make a gun virtually unsellable. I would advise practicing on something first as I did. The Springfield's come with all the "gear" with every gun and I learned that I could do it on a mag loader I really had no use for. There was a detectable difference in the polymer of it compared to actual gun, but it was good practice and easy enough to get the feel for working with the actual frame on the fly. Should anyone be working with a SA gun the polymer the mag loader is made of feels "harder" or possibly just melts at a higher temp than the frame. Whatever the reason you need to stipple at a quicker pace and use slightly less pressure when you move to the frame. Mostly a quicker pace makes the adjustment needed.

Hope that explains it well.....I'm no expert on the process yet but am willing to help however I can with what I've learned up to this point.

I must say. It looks like it was done at the factory. Is this very time intensive?