Palmswell Ergo

I was going to title this post "My Ergo is Black and Swollen--Maybe I should get it checked out", but changed my mind.
I went to work on my own palmswell application last night and it turned out pretty well, for the most part. The feel of it (or "the important part" ) is great. Fits my hand perfect, shoots wonderfully. I feel ike I could shoot with it all day and maintain the same level of accuracy.
The finish still needs some work. Turns out I still have some to learn about wood finishing.
So, here's the first photo of the work in progress:

The slingshot is my oak ergo with copycat fork design. The palmswell is of some variety of pine. I call it Powderwood because it turns to powder instead of dust when you cut or sand it. Since the sling was already finished it had a rounded edge on it, which made good attatchment of the swell problematic. Lacking a belt sander, I rasped and hand sanded it flat as I could. I used Gorilla Glue to stick'em and clamped it overnight.
Thismorning I unclamped and started sanding. I ended up with a nice shape and smooth transitions. I used a little Elmer's wood putty to fill in the gap. Lookin good, so far. I wanted to match up the colors a bit better so I did a brush on/wipe off with a poly-stain. Turns out Powderwood doesn't take to being stained, which I would have known had I read all of the directions . It really looked awful.
So I did this:
:
I've been thinking about doing a painted one anyway, what the heck!