EVA Rear Grip

Re: EVA Rear Grip

Posted by: John E Powell (---.dynamic.wnyric.org)

Date: January 26, 2015 12:42PM

I was really skeptical when I heard about the rubber cement method a while back, then I saw the YouTube video and it’s really pretty amazing.

I've used another method that hasn't been mentioned yet in the thread so I'll just throw this out there for what It's worth. It's the compressed air method.

1) Bevel the inside of the butt end of the grip with an Exacto blade to help funnel the epoxy between the grip and blank when the grip is pushed down. This can be done with all methods. Skipping this step causes the sharp edge to act as a squeegee which pushes most of the epoxy off the blank. You'll have more epoxy under your grip if you bevel the end of the grip.

2) Using any of the methods described above, use a small air hose nozzle to deliver a shot of compressed air between the grip and the blank as you push it into place. Keep the nozzle just under the top edge of the grip and use your thumb and index finger to constrict the top edge of the grip to prevent the air from just blowing back up the edge of the nozzle. The idea is for the compressed air to slightly expand the grip, sort of like blowing up a balloon, as you slide it into place. The slight expansion of the grip that occurs as the compressed air passes between the grip and blank reduces the amount of epoxy that gets squeegeed off the end resulting in more epoxy remaining under the grip.

You can also sometimes save a grip that didn't end up in the right spot using compressed air. Say you thought you could just slide it on but it didn't quite get to where you need it, or maybe you pushed it too far and need to get it back but you can't, use the compressed air to expand the grip slightly and most times you can loosen it enough to recover the grip and get it placed correctly.

I keep my air hose handy with every stretch grip install, even for grips I've reamed and trial fit. I recommend you practice this a couple times as there's a bit of a learning curve to get the technique right. You have to coordinate the right compressive force in your hand (to prevent air loss back up the outside of the nozzle), and allow your hand's grip on the foam to expand as the grip travels down the blank (if necessary to accommodate increasing blank diameter), while keeping the compressed air nozzle in the grip as you pushing the grip along the blank. You don't want to learn how to do this with a stuck grip that didn't reach its intended resting place with epoxy all over the blank.

Also, don't try this with cork (or other rigid grip materials); you can split the grip in two. It only works with elastic materials that can expand like EVA or Hypalon.

I should confess that I don't do what I just described much anymore, but it does work really well. Now, I pretty much ream everything to fit, and then mount the grips. They're two reasons I went this route. The first reason is to reduce the weight of the rear grip. A stretched grip hasn't had any interior material removed so it can be significantly heavier than a grip that has been reamed to fit, especially on the long trolling rod grips I build. The second reason is for safety. I don't like turning blanks on a lathe. I had a graphite blank explode on me a while back and I spent the better part of an afternoon in the emergency room with a doctor picking rod blank shards out of my thumb, hand, wrist, forearm and cheek (some shards having to be cut out). So If I have a build where a seamless transition of the various grip parts is part of the design, I make sure to pre fit everything so they just slide in place without expansion of the grip materials. If that's not a concern for a particular rod, I'll use the push and expand method with air, but I still pre-ream an undersized grip hole to within 1/8” of the blank size.

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2015 01:15PM by John E Powell.

Options: Reply•Quote