I have been fooling around in the garage making some cork grips, mostly trying to come up with something a little different, to call my own.  I have a few grips with different materials, machined out to be trim rings, bands, etc.... anything hard like wood or plastics are pretty easy but my question for you is about eva and closed cell foams.  I have one that I glued up the other night with some exotic burl cork and a tight, closed cell foam used in small accent bands.  I think it looks pretty cool and matches a spool of blue thread perfectly.  Should make for a great look on a matte black blank.  

I know that cork and eva do not sand at the same speed or rate so how have you had your best results?  I have read that the sanding screens used for drywall work well on eva, any idea how well they work on cork?  Could it be as simple as using a sanding block to keep things even?  

Thanks for any ideas,

Keith

flechero,

I have read that the dry wall screens work well on cork and eva. I personally don't mix my burl with foam or plastic. If I had the time I would glue up a grip with eva, plastic, and burl and try the screen and a sand paper block and see which does work best.

Tight Wraps!    

I went ahead and used Sureform blade (looks like cheese grater) to rough out the grips and then sanded down as I normally do.  It left the foam raised since foam doesn't sand well... when I tried the screen, it worked ok but again, the cork cuts much faster.  I ended up cutting strips of the screen exactly the width of the foam rings and had to final shape independently.  I got the foam where I wanted it and then brought the cork down to match.  I lightly burnished the foam with a piece of leather for smoothing, since the screen left it like the texture of suede or velvet.

I am surprised at the end result, it turned out very nice.  Although now I wish I would have used thinner foam rings and had two or three color trim bands.  

Keith,

That is the one thing that I really like about the art. You are only limited by your imagination and techniques. The main reason for practice and experimentation. Next your going to have to try the checker board inlay. That one will have you all glued up first time around, I had epoxy all over the placed first time I tried them on a grip.

I wannna see pics of the foam/cork grip.

I'll bet it looks great...... ;D

It is good to use the Sureform blade and get it fairly close to the finish size.  Then on multi-material to finish, I found it best to use a sanding block.  The sanding block will not give you humps or depressions. The photo will show burnt burl and standard cork.  The burnt burl is really dense compared to the standard cork.

Jim,

Impressive work!  I'm not even in your league... my grips are only "trim rings" of foam to add some color.  

It does not take too long to learn how to do these.  I have only been building rods for about 6 years now.  I can also say, I have alot to learn still.  

JimRippe,

Those are great grips. I always liked the look of the checker board, but could never get them to look equal in the layout, my glue ups always frustrated the $&%% out of me.

Tight Wraps!