Sticky stick grips

humm, so tennis grips lose their grip after a while, damned things......

so today i covered my grips with silicon sealent, and now.......mmm they are lovley, nice and bouncy, but in a controlled way, and for contact i like
apart from the silicon does peal unless you massagre it in wiht your fingers.

any other suggestions?

(i dont want to buy more gips that i will have to replace really soon.)

there are these wierd see through rubber balls full of water, some have rubber spikes on the outside, some have glitter in them.

They cost about a pound each maximum.

Cut them open and cut out a rectangle from the empty rubber shell and stick that on your staff as the grip. Nobbley bits out is best.

and did you mean gimps or grips?

I've used Electrical Tape on the first few staves I made, its visable, cheep and reasonable good. Esp if you double wrap it exactly the same way you do with a tennis racket grip, the edges overlapping by about 30% and go down and back up the grip creating a crisscross ridge grip. I only needed to replace it once in 18 months at a cost of about 50 cents. I also wrapped it half and half in white and yellow so the balance point was marked and the contrast improves visability.

For wood staves you can use rope (3mm cotton) wrapped grip. It streaches slightly over time and need to be re-wrapped / tightened occasionally and I usually fix the ends with a small (1d) nail at the end and wrap over the tail to keep it tight. No sticky problems at all and adds a slight padding which makes it less painful to catch wood staves on the back of your hand. I don't think that it would work for a Steel/metal stave as the rope slips and is hard to affix properly (anyone has any ideas..) It also adds about 5mm or so to the diameter which may be a good or bad thing.

I don't like most comercial rubber grips as they are "Excitingly curved" making the staff more uneven, hence making my own from day 1.

I use hockey stick grip on my doubles. Gray's Traction Grip. It is a little bumpy, but it feels really nice, grips well and is quite durable. I wouldn't recomend it for contact staves though...

I wouldnt have thought that tape would be any kind of compotition to tennis grip though would it?

Im used to the feel as that what i use of my devil stick but when trying contact with my devil stick (theres no harm in trying if you kno it will lead nowhere) and it doesnt cause any friction on material atall rather the opposite infact.

I *really* have a strong objection to electrical tape for grips. I personally think its not grippy enough, and will just end up hurting your hands.

ah the search for the perfect grip. its like the search for the holy grail

which was going to be found in Harrods originally...

well an update, the grip, i now have is the most perfect i have tried
so to do, cover your grip in about 2-3mm of silicon sealent, leave to dry over night, so it dosent come off in little chunks on your neck and hands.......and then all is good

do you use different grip for contact

I dont use a diffrent grip....,
i have just been expermanting

i just bought some stuff called tiller tape which is for boat tillers. it's like a strip of towel with a self adhesive back and has worked fine so far. it costs about £1 for a roll and for a long staff you'll need about 2 or 3. you shold be able to get some from a chandlery or something.

Cheers max i might well give it a go with my next stick, for the current one tho, cover it in PVA and then silicon

i think the most effective grip is bike tube. gaffa tape one end, wrap tightly and then tape the other end. it doesnt have the same bumpy feel as rope, and it doesnt flake & wear down like racket grip. you have to keep a pump nearby though. accidents will happen

Bike innertube is indeed a wise choise..

its cheaop too, if you pop into your local bike shop you can get a fistfull of burst tubes for nothing if you smile nice

i just got some inner tube but cos i was puuting some on my practice staff it was just the right size to pull over the staff and still be tight

i just got some silicone for my doubles but as some of u will know cos they as yet have no innercore they get incredibly hot and i was wondering if i will need to give them innercores before i light them or will the silicon withstand the temperature?

Dude get a core in those badboys. They heated up stupendously at Play.