I've been meaning to make some Micarta to mess around with, but hadn't quite decided on what to use it for. I picked up an old Stevens 20 ga side by side, and it had a broken butt plate. I had been trying to find a replacement plate with the original screw spacing for it, but finally realized that it would be a perfect Micarta project. I used some tan material that was kind of a cross between burlap and canvas, it reminded me of an almost sheer curtain. A little black enamel rustoleum in the epoxy for color. Looks pretty decent for a first try. I'll do some more profiling to add a little concave curve to it, but it bulls up nice and has about the perfect texture. not slippery, but not overly grippy either. I'll be refinishing the stock with an oil rubbed finish to make the gun look decent. This is just a beater gun that I use for dog training, so it makes a good Guinea Pig. I'd like to do this as a custom pad on a few other guns with light recoil, and possibly make a set of grips for my CZ RAMI now that I know it isn't rocket surgery. I have done some hand checkering in the past, so I may mess around and see how well the checkering tools work on some of the scraps.