Installing Handle Mounts for a Stand Up Paddle Surfboard at Wet Feet Hawaii – Part 3 – Video
Wet Feet’s resident handyman takes us through the process of installing handle mounts on a stand up paddle surfboard. It’s worth it once you have those handles installed on your board. It will be much easier to carry, plus, it can be used as a grip to grab on to while in the water.
(click thumbnail to launch video)
Clarke: This is a two-part epoxy.
Evan: Five minute kind?
Clarke: Five minute epoxy, yep.
Evan: Did you mix it already?
Clarke: I’m mixing it now. Two equal sized portions, and again we’re using some highly technical instruments here. The chopsticks is required and as well as some cardboard. This is where it can get a little bit messy. I’m just going to dip the edges. What this does is provide a seal?
Evan: Oh, you’re only putting the edges on?
Clarke: Only the edges. Because the adhesive that is provided with the pad is quite adequate and what this does is seal the edges to prevent any sort of…
Evan: You took off the sticker thing on the bottom already?
Clarke: Yep, I took off the sticker thing.
Evan: It doesn’t stick to your glove though, huh?
Clarke: It does a little bit. But here’s the trick, right there. And then in, boom. Now that bugger is not coming out, once you set it on there it’s not moving. Now, number 2. Peel off the back if you can get a grip on it. Hold it on the middle like that.
Evan: So the epoxy holds it to the board or it just keeps so that no water goes underneath or something?
Clarke: Yep, all of that. It serves both purposes.
Evan: And that’s all the epoxy put on?
Clarke: That’s it. That is it right there. Just to seal the edge.
Clark: It’s kind of hard to see but you can se all the epoxy is along the middle of the pad here.
Clarke: If you have any question, if you have enough epoxy there – this here looks a little bit shy. Since it is five-minute epoxy, you have to work quickly. I’m going to do a second batch for that side. I’m not going to try and rush it because things might not come out very well if you do that. So what I’m going to do is press this right along the side like that. I’ll clean this up here with a towel.
Evan: With acetone or no?
Clarke: No. Right now the epoxy is still activating, it’s still wet so all you need to do is wide off any excess. Done.
Clarke: Now, we’re going to do the second set of handles. You can eyeball equal parts of the epoxy. Give it a good thorough mixing to activate the hardener of the resin. Ok, just like we did on the other side. Peel off the adhesive backing.
Clarke: This is applying a clear paddle grip to the center of your paddle. And this is nice because it doesn’t add a whole lot of thickness to the diameter of the paddle shaft. First thing you want to do is measure around, because the differences in diameter vary somewhat. And we’re looking at 3 and ¾ inches. Ok, 3 and ¾. There.
Evan: How do you make sure that thing goes on straight?
Clarke: That is you pretty much have to eyeball.
Evan: How low are you doing it or high?
Clarke: I’m doing it – I pretty much try and center it. And this is 18 inches long. It’s long enough that you have some play because depending what sort of paddling you’re doing, you’re going to have your grip a little bit lower or a little bit higher. So this gives you options as to where you’re going to have your hand.
Evan: So just eyeballing it.
Clarke: Yep, just eyeballing it. Starting in the middle, wrapping around. Just like that. You can use something hard to help push out any air pockets in there.
Evan: Are you just going to overlap it?
Clarke: I’m going to overlap it. I’m just going to take a razor blade and cut off the excess, right along the seam.
Evan: Some bubbles.
Clarke: Yep, some bubbles. Exactly.
Evan: You want to just cut it straight from here.
Clarke: Yeah, we can do that actually. We can just trim it like this. When we’re done with this side we’ll try that. You can just see a line right there.
Evan: Just screwing the pieces in there.
Clarke: Yeah.
Clarke: Nicely balanced. You can carry it to the beach over your head, on the side. Also gives you something, when you fall in to the water, and in you’re in the water, you have a handle that you can grab and pull yourself up with – just another feature about having a handles on here
Installing Handle Mounts for a Stand Up Paddle Surfboard at Wet Feet Hawaii - Part 3 [3:54m]: Download
Installing Handle Mounts for a Stand Up Paddle Surfboard at Wet Feet Hawaii - Part 3 [3:55m]: Download
[..YouTube..] Awesome video!
Where can I get these handles from?
[..YouTube..] If you’re in Oahu, you can get them at Wet Feet Hawaii. Their store is at 820 W. Hind Drive in the Aina Haina Shopping Center (the one with McDonalds) next to Subway. Or visit their site at wetfeethawaii[dot]com (replace [dot] with .)
Good luck!
You can also order them online at the Wet Feet web store OffDaLip, we now offer and easier to intall version:
http://offdal.stores.yahoo.net/01-bhandle.html