Golfblogger

I’m in the process of regripping my irons, and boy, what a pain.  Getting the old grips off is no problem, but getting two layers of old tape off of the shafts is very time-consuming.  I’ve tried soaking them in both tape solvent and mineral spirits but neither is particularly effective.  I see Golfsmith has a $16 tool available.  Is there a better way?

Try a hair dryer on its hottest setting. It dries out the tape and the glue and makes it very easy to take off.

I just got five irons prepped.  I’ll try a heat-gun on the next batch.  Thanks!

I tried the heat-gun on three more irons, and it worked a lot better.  It didn’t dry the tape out so much as soften the adhesive so that the tape could be peeled off.  Working in a 60-degree garage probably didn’t help all that much!

Thanks for the responses.  Changing grips on my clubs is sort of a “rite of spring” for me.  Do you find that gasoline is much better than grip solvent?  It’s probably quite a bit cheaper!

Wow. Gasoline. I think not.

Try mineral spirits from the hardware store. They even make non-smelly versions.

I recycle the spirits. I do the pouring of the liquid over a painter’s roller tray. It catches the spirits and then I pour them back into the can.

You also can get water activated grip tape from a number of shops.

I’d already tried mineral spirits; see my first post.  It didn’t seem to work all that well getting the old tape off, which to me is the biggest PITA factor.

Maybe it was my clubs, maybe I didn’t have those grips on long enough.  I just started doing my grips myself in the past couple weeks, and I have yet to get a club which I cannot peel off the old tape with my fingers.  I bought the stripping tool from golfsmith, and have used it one time on about 8 clubs so far. 

It did take some time, but it was much cleaner than getting lots of strips and bits coming off those shafts.

Razor blade and solvent.