This is a great idea..."BUT"...(There's that word again)...Who's gonna' do the work? How long will it take? What will the costs be? All valid questions. Perdue and Skaggs are backed up for years. Dennis Holland does fabulous checkering on pistol/revolver grips but I've seen his knife handles and they ain't for me.
I think we need to build the knife, Crew. The whole matching pair thing is getting precedence over the actual knife build, which is the one part of this "1911" build we should be able to accomplish without much delay. The grips can certainly be added, and out of the same material. The problem will be anything "else".
Gene Beal will be able to sell me a pair of ivory grips, but that's all he deals in. I can get Gene to make us a set of grips in any type of wood we can agree on, providing it is "doable". Lignum Vitae, for example, is just too hard to work with and he will not spend his time on it.
It goes back to: Let's build the knife, keeping in mind that we want matching material for a set of grips. I think that's enough for now. Let me hear your thoughts, crew.
Best, Capt. Chris