Which Regripping Method is Better? Tape & Solvent vs Compressed Air

This is always a debate on the channel. Do you regrip golf clubs with grip tape and solvent or compressed air? In this video I cover the pro and cons of each method and give recommendations for which grips work best with which install method.

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All right this may be the biggest debate in the game of golf well at least on this channel do you regrip with tape and solvent or with compressed air we’re going to talk about which one is better let’s Go hi everyone welcome back to the channel hope you’re having a wonderful day so this is a topic that comes up every single time I do a regripping video inevitably if I do a video where I’m doing something with tape and solvent I get a whole bunch of comments

About compressed air and when I do a video about compressed air well guess what I get a bunch of comments about tape and solvent so this video today we’re just going to cover exactly which of these methods in my opinion is going to be better for your particular

Regripping needs okay first off let’s just do a quick pros and cons list for each of these methods first up grip tape and grip solvent well obviously this has been the dominant way to install golf grips for a very very very long time and it’s got a few things going for it first

Off it’s pretty darn fast as far as actually installing as far as actually putting on the grips secondly it works basically with every single kind of grip out there doesn’t matter the material doesn’t matter the form of the grip it’s going to work with all of them third it

Gives you a great hold it’s longlasting so you don’t have to worry about that grip moving around going anywhere once it’s on there once it is dry it’s it’s on there finally it’s inexpensive right you don’t need a lot of tools to be able to put grips on the traditional quote

Unquote way you need some grip solvent you need some double-sided tape a visce is extremely helpful and some grips I mean that’s really the whole list if you’re really trying to bear bones it now when it comes to the compressed air method we do get some unique Pros there

That you don’t get with the other method now the first one is yes the compressed air method is also very fast when you’re actually putting the grip on but what you also get with compressed air is it’s very fast to get grips off and even more

Than that if you’re wanting to save the grip and reuse it it’s just as fast it’s very easy to not only put the grip on but take it off just as quickly the second Pro is once you get that grip onto the shaft with compressed air that

Club is ready to go you can hit that club immediately there is no waiting once that grips on you can go and hit it and finally the third real Pro with compressed air is it’s just a lot cleaner you don’t have all the dripping solvent you don’t have all the slippery

Gooey tape it’s just a much cleaner process from start to finish when you’re using compressed air all right now let’s talk about the cons first con when it comes to grip tape and solvent is going to be well you have to wait doesn’t matter how fast you are installing that

Grip you are going to be playing the waiting game for at least say 30 minutes to up to an hour waiting for that grip tape waiting for that solvent to dry before you can actually hit the golf club con number two when it comes to grip tape and solvent well as we’ve

Already touched on it’s definitely Messier you’ve got more liquids you’ve got sticky SL slippery grip tape it’s just not as clean a process as with compressed air so if you’re going to be doing it somewhere other than a shop or a garage you definitely want to take some precautions make sure there’s

Something covering the floor or covering the table that you’re using because it’s just not as clean as with compressed air the third con when it comes to grip tape and solvent is well it’s a lot harder to remove that grip again now obviously you can cut the grip off but then that grip

Is toast you can’t use it again if you want to be able to take a grip off maybe cut an inch off a club put that same grip back on well it’s a lot harder to do if that grip is installed with tape and solvent not that it can’t be done

I’ve done videos on this and I will leave a link down in the description to one of my personal favorites so that if you are needing to remove a grip that was installed the traditional way it’s probably the easiest way to do it but it

Is a lot slower it is a lot Messier again than using compressed air now compressed air also has some cons to it the first one it’s going to be more expensive than the other method it’s going to require obviously either a compressor or a tire inflator to get the

Job done now a compressor is going to be more expensive and as I’ve shown with a few videos I’ve done where I introduced the idea of using a tire inflator that is going to be a smaller simpler cheaper alternative and it works just as well

Well the good thing is you can buy them any number of places at any number of price points I’ve bought and used both plug-in style and cordless style they both do the job you really just want to make sure it can get to 60 PSI you

Should be good to go now the second con when it comes to compressed air is the hold may not be as good and I’m going to show you what I mean by that right now so I have a grip on this club and hopefully you can see if I hold this just right

That the end of the grip and the front of the grip here are all nice and lined up everything is nice and straight I’m going to hit a few balls now and I’m going to miss these balls kind of on purpose I’m going to try and hit all

These pretty far out on the toe and I’m going to show you what can happen all right now I’ve hit a bunch of balls really focusing everything out here on the toe and what happens when you hit either on the toe or the heel well the

Head will start to twist a little bit you hit it way out on the toe the head’s going to kind of do that and what ends up happening is if you look now down the shaft again like we did before notice the face is still lined up

With the logo on the top here but if you look at the logo down here on the butt cap it is no longer lined up perfectly with the logo on the top so all that is to say that the bond that you get with the compressed air is just not going to

Be quite as uh robust as it will be with tape and solvent now obviously a grip like this it’s not really going to matter if it twists a little you’re probably not going to notice it you’re not going to feel it but there are going

To be some grips where it is going to be more of an issue and that leads into our third con for compressed air which is not every type of grip not every style of grip is going to be suited for compressed air and actually now that is

Going to be what we talk about for the remainder of this video looking at some different grips Styles some different grip types and talking about which ones will and which ones won’t work so well when it comes to compressed air let me just say before we get into these

Individual grips going back to what I just showed you with the grip cap kind of slipping over time if you repeatedly hit it out on the toe or the heel obviously if that happens and you have your own compressor well it is very easy to fix that issue just like this set it

Back in here [Applause] turn on the air again and you can basically just twist it back to where it needs to be so that now this isn’t perfect but the words here the end of the grip here is now much more in line with the top end of the grip on this

Side remember when we are talking about the two methods here we’re going to be using two different kinds of tape so when we are in sing grips the traditional method with tape and solvent we use this which is double-sided tape right it’s got tape it’s got adhesive

Both on this side and on this side so it sticks to the shaft and the grip also notice because I get this question all the time this is a double-sided tape dispenser I get people all the time asking me why aren’t you taking the backing this part here off of the tape

When you put it on the shaft and I am it’s just being done for me using this series of wheels so that all the backing rolls up over here and I just get the tape on this side with both sides ready to go so this is going to be what we

Always use for grip tape and solvent when we’re talking about compressed air this side this roll of tape is just plain masking tape meaning it’s sticky on this side but it’s not sticky on this other side and that’s what we’re using when it comes to the air method

Now the only reason we’re using masking tape is to size the grip properly that masking tape does nothing to actually hold the grip onto the shaft again the only adhesive on that tape is on the side that’s touching the shaft not the side that’s touching the grip so it’s

Not doing anything to help hold the grip on it’s purely just a matter of trying to make that grip feel the same as it would if you installed it the traditional way with double-sided tape so we’re adding some tape in order to make the grip feel slightly bigger now

Here’s the hack when it comes to the masking tape and air method and I’ve gotten this again from BMX bikers and golfers from that but you can take some hairspray just plain old Hairspray spray a little of that onto the masking tape right before you air install the grip

And that hairspray the glue basically that’s in it will help hold that grip on better and keep it from slipping okay finally let’s talk about what kinds of grips are going to be good candidates for the air install method and which ones do you maybe want to stick to the

Grip tape and solvent method with well when it comes to the air install method the best grips are going to be ones that are a softer rubber form always also helpful if they have a softer butt cap section that’s a little bit squishier just makes it easier to get on any grip

That is softer rubber maybe has more of that tacky feel to it like a star grip like a pure grip anything like that that has just that softer tacky feel to it are going to be good candidates in general for working with compressed air so that can be again pure grips star

Grips a standard tour velvet will work pretty darn well albeit the grip cap on this grip is pretty hard so it takes a little extra effort to get the air uh either needle or the little raft tip that I use in here so that you can get

The grip on and off but these will work another grip I found if you haven’t seen before this Royal grip this Royal grip has almost a sand paper texture on the outside but it’s extremely soft and Squishy has good tack to it very soft butt end here this would work extremely

Well when it comes to installing and removing with compressed air now there’s also some grips you just probably don’t want to use with compressed air and those are going to be grips that one are harder grips any sort of sort of firmer feeling grip where the rubber is firmer

Do not work as well it’s harder to get them on and off and it’s also just they’re more likely to kind of slip around on you I found than those softer tackier style grips so that would be something like say the Z uh ztec or Z

Chord grip from Golf Pride this is a very firm grip a very hard grip I would not recommend using this with compressed air beyond that you also want to shy away from from grips that have a cord in them again this Z chord is not going to

Be a good candidate because it has that cord running through it and that also makes it harder to get on and off in general and a little more likely that it’s going to slip around on you another one would be the Golf Pride MCC I have installed these with compressed air but

They do uh have a greater chance I have found of slipping again because of that cord material that they’re using now the other issue or the other Style of grip that I would definitely stay away from is going to be anything with a reminder or any sort of guide running down the

Back whether that is the Golf Pride align or the Lampkin calibrate or even this grip here which is the Avon Shamy I had these on a set of irons and these actually just have a rib running down the back of them any grip that has any

Sort of rib on it where you could get slipping and then all of a sudden that rib or that reminder gets twisted a little bit that’s not great because not only are you going to maybe see it when you look at it but you’re definitely going to feel it if that reminder is

Twisted around at the bottom so any of these grips that have that reminder on them I would definitely shy away from or if you are going to use the compressed air method I would definitely look into that hairspray trick to ensure that you hopefully get less slipping around so

You’ve got pros and cons with both methods but I think in the end it’s really going to come down to what type of grip what style of grip are you wanting to use and that’s really going to dictate which method is going to work better that being said definitely

Interested to hear from you guys if you use the hairspray method or if you go ahead after watching this video and use that hairspray method with the compressed air definitely let me know how that worked how easy was it to get on and off and how good was the hold

When you use that because i’ definitely like to get some more data on that that I can share with or we can all share with each other and see if that’s maybe The Best of Both Worlds hey if you enjoyed this video make sure you go down below like comment subscribe to the

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