holly smokes that sucked

[cold waters]

so I have built about a dozen rods with EVA grips (over the last 10 years)...this time almost didnt go so well.

I have always bought grips that either were really close in diameter or reamed them out so they were fairly close.

1st question reaming eva, is there a good way to do it... i have used rat tail files sanding sticks and other abrasives... none of them seem to do a great job, any suggestions.

2nd, i have always heated the grips with a hair dryer or in a bag and submerged them in warm water. this always them to stretch out better.

well last night I was tossing the grip on a 130 I am rebuilding and I didnt ream out the grip very much but I had a 4" section with the same ID and with out heat or epoxy I pretty much forced it right to the butt with zero issues... so I put a hair drier to the grip and started mixing epoxy.. it felt fairly warm so off I went... well this damn thing stopped 5" from the ferrule.


so it took some serious sweat and tears (and a ton of doubt that I was going to get it to go) but I did get it to the ferrule. I am slightly concerned that it isnt going to have any epoxy under it..


so with this long post how much do you figure eva stretches comfortably, how do you ream it, how do you heat it.

[Handcrafter]

I too have been building for awhile. I always ream the EVA grips with a razor wand to within a inch of final resting place and then apply adheasive and position the grip......Lynn

[FLATLINER]

Sorry for the hernia CW!! I reem mine out on a lathe with a piece of blank with grip spiraled up the length.

Something else you can try, if you don't have a lathe, is to pour denatured alcohol into the grip and then dump it out after it has coated the inside and it will slip over the blank like a greased pig thru a garden hose

Kevin

[cold waters]

Kevin,

I do have a lathe I might try that the next time...

if you pour denatured alcohol are you concerned about it diluting the epoxy?

[FLATLINER]

Kevin,

I do have a lathe I might try that the next time...

if you pour denatured alcohol are you concerned about it diluting the epoxy?

I used to be, but I have not had any come back with any issues. What I do once I put the grip down is turn it. If I hear any "squeaking" at all from the grip, I pull it up and re apply and put it back down again. Once the grip has been down once, it will go back without much effort the next time.

Do you have a wood turning lathe, or a rod lathe? I reem mine out on the wood turning lathe. I feel that the motors on the rod lathe dont have enough ass to stand up to the back pressure.

If you have a wood turning lathe, you can make the sticks yourself, or they come premade. Let me know and I can get them for you.

Kevin

[clt_capt]

Harbor freight - www.harbourfreight.com
and
Klingspors - http://www.woodworkingshop.com/

Sell adhesive backed sandpaper strips. Get the narrowest they offer, then find some old scrap rod blanks - Chuck the blank in your lathe and use it to wrap the adhesive paper on the blank.

Let it sit overnight for the glue to cure up and you have a reamer.

A lot of the premade reamers will be too short for long grips - or in my case poly foam to make graphite sleeved grips.

[FLATLINER]

Here is what I use. They are fine as I just turn around the grip and continue.

[FLATLINER]

Here is also the video that I did on the standups this past spring. After the cutting section, I go thru the reeming of the grips.