>I have found that if I create a "user control" with the grid, I can amend the user control class and that updates in the form. Is this an acceptable method of coding? don't quite understand the difference between a "User Control" and a straight forward class.

I wouldn't use the UserControl if it's for a single control. IOW, all you'd be putting on the UserControl would be the Grid. If you were designing a control that had, as an example, a TextBox and a Button and they had to work together for some reason, then that's when you put them both in a UserControl.

So for your grid, you should just be sub-classing it in code. Use Viv's suggestion (I know it's a PITA, but it'll work once you extract all the pieces you need into your class).

~~Bonnie