Does anyone know where you can find information for doing picture inlays on EVA grips? Thanks.

I'm not sure what you mean by "picture inlays" - most people cut out/design their own I think. Merrick Tackle (to the left) also sells pre-cut hypalon designs (common shapes).

There will be an upcomming article in RodMaker on some unique ways to do this. For the most part, you cut your design out of 2mm to 3mm foam (craft or funny foam works well and Mud Hole sells assortments of several colors). Then you cut out a "relief" for that pattern or cut out in the grip itself. Insert and adhere with the foam cut-out into the relief with contact cement (thinned/wetted so you can move the cut out into position) and then turn to smooth things up.

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what tools are used to carve out the grip? I have purchased some foam pieces from the art supply store. I'm not sure if it's 2mm or 3mm. Does the thickness make a difference? Thanks.

Well, sometimes it can. If you need to do much sanding then really thin pieces may be sanded right through. A little extra thickness just gives you more margin for error.

Some builders dig out the main grip with whatever is handy - Xacto knives, etc., and Merrick actually sells a tool for doing this. You can also turn a Dremel tool into a mini-router and remove the material from the relief very quickly and effectively, although it requires a slight modification to their own router attachment device (the article will show how).

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You might want to e-mail Billy Vivona (Billy 40)! He does great inlays!!!

Mike I'll post pictures for you. I just cut out the SpongeBob this afternoon, will be posting a few pictures of it prior to glueing.

Rockin - What EXACTLY are you looking to do? How thick will the grip be. With thinner grips the Inlay needs to be between 2 - 2 1/2" wide because it will wrap around the grip too much. Thicker grips 2 1/2 - 3". It's ver difficult to get small details cut out of the foam because it compresses when you try to cut it out. IT does take some skills and some figuring out to get it right.

The thicknesof teh foam - too thin and it is very difficult to glue everything together. The Glue is VERY sticky, and I've tried with the thin sheets from teh Craft shop - and for me it's no good. Not to mention the foam is "soft". Mudhole has the same stuff as in the Craft shop, but they have it a bit thicker. Too thick foam, makes it hard to cut out. The razor will go in on an angle and the pieces won't fit together the way you want. If there are small pieces, or pieces with a lot of points, the thicker stuff is no good.

I ended up cutting a few of my own sheets from square stock, 3/16" is what I like.

In the past few days I've cut up the SPongeBob, glued up an Eagle, cut up another Eagle, made a few Butterflies, and did an awesome one of a Jockey on a horse wiith his fist raised in teh air - my Dad owned a Horse which won a race up in Saratoga, so I matched the silks worn by the jocket, and put a stripe down teh center of the horses face to match his horse.

PS - doing letters like a GIANTS Logo, is really, really hard to do. Where's Justin? lol.

I guess it sounds like the thicker the EVA sheets will be more forgiving and allow me to turn the grip down a little more. I plan on starting with grips that have a OD of 1.5". Thanks for the help.

Rockin - e-mail me at work.

I just thought of a couple more things. After the Inlay is glued up & ready to be inlayed into teh grip, you have to leave yourself some room for error, but not too much. IF you are digging out the grip for the inlay to fit with an Exacto - the bottom of the dug out portion will be very uneven. This will be taken care of when you sand. Now, if you start with teh OD of teh grip close to where you want th eOD of teh completed grip - you will not have much room for error - either the Inlay will not be sanded smooth, or you will end up sanding eh grip too thin.

On the other side of teh coin - if you start with a thin Inlay, lik eI suggest, and you don't dig out enough, or start out with teh OD too wide n teh grip - you will sand right through the Inlay. IT does take some figuring out & a bit of trial and error.

As for digging out with a Dremel - IF you're serious about doing Inlays, and you want a perfect result - I strongly suggest spending $50 on teh Router Base they sell for the Dremel. Not all Dremels fit though. With this you can set teh depth at which to "dig out" the main grip - set it exactly as thick as teh inlay - and you can start with teh OD of the grip about 1/4" larger than what you want in a finished product. SO, set the depth at 3/16", glue it in, and you will sand off 1/8" worht of teh Inlay (reducing a grip by 1/4" means take 18" off on both "sides" of the grip)

One final thing I still have a problem with - larger Inlays with a lot of shape on teh edges. After I trace the shape of the inlay on the grip, then dig it out - the inlay does NOT fit. I guess whe you dig the grip out, that reduces teh OD of teh grip in that area, and the inlay will fit further around the blank. What I'm going to be trying is to trace & dig 1/2 of teh inlay out in the grip, then retracing the other half out & see if that solves my problem. THis is where I have the most difficulties out of the whole process.I think if you do a pattern with a round or square outline, it's much easier to fix. WIth points & curves - you make a mistake & you've gotta use a new piece of grip for teh digging out.

Next step is glueing it into the grip...but I'll save that for a rainy day.