Custom Tactical Innovations offers many custom options, and custom products. One of the custom services we offer for firearms is stippling.  There is a lot that goes into stippling that some people may not realize but will still try to do it on their own to save money, or just because they got the DIYer in them, or have fears of shipping their firearm off.  This blog is to give some general advice, and tips to the DIYers.  Custom Tactical Innovations would absolutely love to have your business , but we realize that there is always gonna be someone that wants to do it on their own, and us being apart of the 2A community would be happy to help. So first off as simple as it sounds come up with a plan, some kind of design to go off, don't just dive in and start melting plastic.  Remember that yes you want a cool custom look, but the main objective to improve your frame for your grip while still maintaining a factory look.  We like to do some prep work before we ever start stippling which includes sanding down rough edges and some of the thick factory texture, we use a little rougher sand paper for this. Remember go slow don't hurry you can't put it back once it's gone. So if your thinking of using a dremel you need to have a steady hand and adjustable speed, we highly recommend just using sand paper to be safe. Also just to be safe put some blue tape on the mag and insert it into the gun and leave it in until your done just in case you get a little carried away and get the grip to hot yes it can happen if you are not careful this will help prevent warping.  Then we use a very fine finish sand paper on those areas we sanded to give a very smooth clean work surface. At this point we normally trace out a pattern we are gonna follow with a white pencil, unless we are going to just follow the factory lines depends on the project.  Now you're ready to stipple having the correct tools is important. Yes investing in the right tools is important, lets face it that goes for every project you start in life you get what you pay for, theirs a reason why custom jobs on anything are not always cheap.  Here at Custom Tactical Innovations we use a wood burning pen to do our stippling with specific tips made for firearm stippling , such as a border tip, and different design tips.  So once you start stippling at this point here is the secret wait for it....  take your time BE PATIENT! it is custom work not a race sounds simple but I have found people tend to not have patience and can not handle the tediousness of stippling. Turn on your favorite sitcom or podcast for some background noise and embrace the job. I hope this has been helpful for any of those thinking about doing some DIY stippling, whether it has encouraged you to try or made you realize you're better off not too. Please feel free to contact Custom Tactical Innovations for any of your stippling needs we would be glad to provide with our custom stippling services, or just shoot us an email if your a DIYer needing some advice.