Bear with me here folks as I am typing with one hand because the other is a flipper right now (Please Don't Ask). Needless to say.....I simply don't have the slightest idea what I am doing when it comes to using contact cement to glue together eva grips with foam strip spacers.

PLEASE...Would any of you more experienced than me be willing to share a step-by-step procedure for using contact cement without any further embarassment and near disaster on my behalf.

I am basically taking pre shaped eva grips and accenting them with strips of complimentary colored eva and then trying to glue them back together.



Ummmm........Any advise as to how to safely and preferably painlessly unglue my fingers would be nice as well.

TOLD YOU NOT TO ASK!


Derek L. McMaster
Rohnert Park, CA

Born to Fish, FORCED to Work

Those instructions are fully outlined in the Volume 7 #3 issue of RodMaker. There are many advantages to being a subscriber. Having all these techniques at your fingertips is one of them.

In a nutshell, you need to coat both mating surfaces with contact cement. Apply the adhesive to each piece in order and then slide the rings and/or EVA sections onto a dowel or mandrel as each one is coated. But do not allow the mating surfaces to touch just yet - you want the contact cement to fully dry.

After several minutes have passed, you can slide the pieces firmly against one another. By having on a dowel or mandrel, they will align easily and you don't have to worry about getting something out of line or in the wrong order. I like to use a cork clamp to firmly seat the EVA pieces/sections for just a minute or so. At that point, it is ready to be shaped.

The photos in the article show this procedure better than I can explain it.

.........

Hey Derek,

I will be at Lake Ralphine tomorrow..............could I borrow your flipper? Just kidding!!! I work a lot with contact cements in the wood working industry, and I imagine it is the same process. Coat each piece, and let them fully dry separately. I know it sounds weird. How does dried glue bond? But it does. When they are totally dry, put them together. We used to apply force to make sure pieces bonded by tapping the assembled pieces with a malet. The bonds are very strong. I agree with using a dowel to align the pieces. I imagine it couldn't hurt to coat the dowel with a bit of paste wax or parrafin so that any errant glue will not attach your grip to the dowel. Thats all I got! Now, about that flipper.................acetone or lacquer thinner will usually break the bond, but only while the solvent is wet on the cement. As soon as the stuff evaporates, your back to really sticky again.

There are several posts in teh archives here, in addition to the Rodmaker issue.

Tom- Believe me...If I had the money I would buy all the back issues available. From what I hear there has not been a single dud issue in the bunch.

Paul- Also used to working with wood and not flexible things like eva....Used to do lathe turned hardwood bowls out of a wide variety of woods glued together to form the bowl blank. THe old man that taught me the art passed away many years ago and I have not had access to the equipment used since....Really miss the work though. If you are talking Lake Ralphine in Howarth Park in Santa Rosa you may be better off hitting Spring Lake. I myself will hopefully be hitting Lake Sonoma for big cats on weekend evenings starting pretty soon.

Looks like I will have to set up a spray area on my back porch to take the process much further. Will probably have to get my hands on some wood dowels as well. Tried to make my own mandrels and have not exactly been suffessful so far. I can never seem to get the PVC end caps perfectly center drilled and the plug mandrels I have attempted to make using plugs cut from blocks of eva have been less than perfect. Made a couple using surgical tubing, but they only work on narrow id blanks and I build a lot of heavy stuff.

Live and Learn I guess.



Derek L. McMaster
Rohnert Park, CA

Born to Fish, FORCED to Work

Hey Derek -
Ya can't crank in the big cats with that flipper attached!!! Or much of anything lese for that matter!!! LOL
How did the ropework turn out on your handle???
Fred

Fred Crum
Dixon, Ca.