C-Forum

whats the best way to attach a wooden t-grip to a carbon fibre shaft?

Alex



'you will never stumble while on your knees'

If you NEVER want to get it off again, use epoxy .

Otherwise, any non-water soluble glue that will stick to both carbon fiber and wood will work. Be sure both surfaces are clean, of course....

I sometimes use a mix of microballoons and vinylester too. Works well.

The most important thing is preparation. Use coarse sandpaper on the inside of the tube. Be rough. It likes it that way. Same with the handle. If I'm really paranoid, I'll use a burr on a Dremel tool or a drill to make divots on the inside of the tube and the mating section of the wood.

I agree with Bob about roughing up the interior of the shaft. If you do want to take a handle off again sometime in the near future, then put a pin in it. Make sure the bottom of the handle sticks far enough down into the shaft so that the pin location won't bother your thumb when it' s gripping the handle. Put a piece of heat shrink tubing onto the shaft in case you need it to cover the pin or seal the section where the handle joins the shaft. Glue the handle first before you put the pin in. Use a fairly weak glue like Elmer's glue instead of any type of resin. If you're going to take a handle out then you should use as little as possible; a very light coating in the interior and hardly any on the handle itself. The idea is to just have the glue hold this handle in place while you're drilling the pin. Then get the handle aligned correctly. I do this by wrapping a piece of duct tape around the top of the shaft so that half of the tape is on the shaft and half of the tape is above the shaft. Then I bend the tape that's above the shaft back and out of the way and stick the handle in and get it aligned. Then I bend the tape back onto the handle and add a couple of more pieces around where the shaft and handle meet. Then I put a couple of these strips up one side of the handle, right over the top of the handle and back down on to the shaft on the opposite side. . If you have two or three pieces of your tape in the proper length for both of these applications before you start, it would be a big help. That way you can keep one hand holding the paddle and handle while you're just laying strips of tape onto the two pieces. Then I set it straight upside down so that all of the glue won't drip down into the shaft and not hold the handle at all, but will rather drip back down on to the top of the shaft where the handle is inserted. When the glue is dried then I drill a small hole through the carbon shaft and into the handle at least halfway through. The best pin is some sort of wood screw because it bites right into the handle material, and also screws out easier if you want to take the pin out. If you're really paranoid about the handle twisting loose then you can put a metal or would dowel through the handle. This is just a pin that goes clear through everything; both sides of the shaft and handle. I've had good luck with old broken drill bits. Use a strong glue here and coat everything up real good. Then just Drill a hole clear through everything with your good drill bit and stick the old drill bit piece through the whole shebang and cut off the ends on either side and you are set to go.. The handle isn't going to move, but it isn't going to be taken out very easily, either.
Hope this helps; Ric Taylor

I've been using thermoplastic glues in order to allow me to experiment with paddle shaft lengths and T grip styles. Thermoplastic glues harden at low temperatures and soften at high temperature but never chemically cure. The most common variety are the ones that are sold at hardware stores to work with hot glue guns (buy the brown industrial strength glue, not the clear hobbyist glue). Nordic skiers almost universally use thermoplastic glue to attach handles and baskets to carbon fiber pole shafts. The advantage is the you can use heat from either boiling water or a paint stripper gun to remove or replace handles and baskets when they wear out. The disadvantage is that these glues are much weaker per square inch of bonding area than epoxies (at best 25%). Therefore you need a large surface area when using these glues. Ski pole handle bonding surfaces are large enough with no modifications. But paddle T-grips need to be modified to create the required surface area. This can be done by attaching the horizontal part of the T handle to a 6 inch long vertical shaft that has been sized to slide inside the paddle shaft. (Waterstick makes some T grips that come this way by the way, although I don't think they had this intent in mind). The glue is then applied to the roughened overlap area between the two shafts under heated conditions. The pieces are fit together and then cooled. Once cooled, this bond so far has proven strong enough to do the job. This way I have been able to experiment with paddleshaft length without either compromising my grip attachment integrity or making a mess of my paddleshafts. To be safe, when I finally get it right I will bond it with epoxy.

Has anyone else every tried this, or have any advice to offer on it's safety? My theory is no T grip = no roll = swim = bad.