I am restoring some older boat rods and they have what I think are hypalon grips. They are softer than EVA but the outsides have gotten crusty and hard. I was told that I could just sand them a little and they would return to normal. Has anyone ever done this? Do I need to just go ahead and cut them off and replace? What do you guys think?

If you sand them and they are fine, you have lost nothing. Worth giving it a try.

It depends how hard and deep the crust is. It may take a lot of sanding to get to the original texture. You may wind up taking off too much material making it unsightly or useless.

As Phil said try it if it dose not work you can install a new grips.

Have fun

You can also try the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser - it is a milder abrasive than sandpaper and does a fine job on moist surfaces.

Adam,
This is a setup that I have put together over the years to take care of chores like the one that you face:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

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When I first started building rods, I essentially copied the full length rod lathe that I learned on at the local rod shop. That lathe was powered by a 1750 rpm electric motor that drove a bearing block that had a 1/2 inch chuck on the driven end. The user would take a piece of tapered solid stock and insert it up the butt end of the rod blank to convey the turning force of the motor to the rod blank. Then, the rod was supported by a 3- bearing design to insure that the blank did not get away from the lathe when the grips were being turned.

This is one of the original rod rests that I made to capture the rod blank and insure that the blank ran true. Since the rod blank was running on ball bearings, I would put about three wraps of masking tape around the rod blank at the rod support bearing to avoid marring the rod blank.

Then, I purchased a wood lathe and do all of the new build grips on the wood lathe on top of a mandrel that is held in the lathe head stock and tail stock for a secure fit.

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Along the way, I ran across a 1/2 hp DC variable speed motor where the motor speed can be varied from 0-2400 rpm. This is the motor that is illustrated in the first link. So, one can secure the rod in the head stock chuck and make all of the rod supports tight, and then, simply turn on the speed knob on the dc variable speed motor - up to the point where the rod blank begins to oscillate, and back it down a touch so that the rod is not left running at a speed that would cause harmonic vibration and rod destruction.

With a setup like the one shown above, it only takes a few minutes to clean up a grip as you spoke about in your post. But you can do the sanding by hand. Just make sure that you do not spend more time on one side of the rod than another side or you will have an out of round rod grip.

Best wishes

Hypalon can be tough to sand because it is so soft and spongy to begin with. But as Phil mentioned you're not really at any loss if sanding doesn't work since you were contemplating removing them anyway. I can recall many years ago some builders were soaking old hypalon grips in something to bring them back to almost new condition but I can't remember what it was. WD40 or some other oddball remedy if I recall. You might do a search here as I'm sure it's been discussed at one time or another.

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Hello Adam.

Tom is right just go to the search and type "Crusty Hypalon" and change time to "all dates" Col has a few that may work.

Tight Wraps & Tighter Lines.