Belegarth

I was wondering what is the best way to make fiberglass cores tacky so that dap will work proper and the foam will not come loose after a few fights. Thanks.

I've read some about rouging the surfaces of the foam and fiberglass with sandpaper. I, personally, don't do this. Are you following the instructions on the can? If it feels wet, it's too soon. I don't have any problem with the box adhering to the core, and my latest builds (blade) seem to be doing just fine. How is your foam separating? Is it at the tip? Or is your **** completely coming apart? Are you using the RED dap?

Taxfrog wrote:I've read some about rouging the surfaces of the foam and fiberglass with sandpaper. I, personally, don't do this. Are you following the instructions on the can? If it feels wet, it's too soon. I don't have any problem with the box adhering to the core, and my latest builds (blade) seem to be doing just fine. How is your foam separating? Is it at the tip? Or is your **** completely coming apart? Are you using the RED dap?

Yep I'm doing everything rite. Red dap and let the dap become tacky(not wet). I have been using the same core for a while and like you I had no problems the first time I built it. But I had to rebuild it and I pulled all the old dap and foam off and rebuilt it. Well that weekend at practice all the foam came loose off the core. Its fine now but I just got a big order of cores and me and my unit are building weapons for an upcoming battle and I don't want that happen at the battle. So yeah anything to help prevent that from happening.

I find that roughing up the core a bit helps. Fiberglass rods are extremely smooth before roughed, which isn't the ideal surface for DAP to adhere to. Try roughing it with a bit of a coarse sandpaper, and that should help you out.

Wrapping the core in athletic tape is great as well. DAP loves to stick to that stuff.

Don't wrap your core in athletic tape. A bit of sandpaper will do the job, but athletic tape adds weight and gives the possibility of coming loose.

Where did it come loose? at the tip? That could be because the biscuit tape was not tough enough or that the dap did not adhere to the biscuit tape (you need to rough with sand paper to get dap to stick).

Barley

barley wrote:Where did it come loose? at the tip?
Barley

First the tip(I fix that) then the whole box came undone. I will rough it then. Thanks for the suggestions.

What foam are you using? blue foam or edhellen fries?

I have noticed that some lots of blue foam from Walmart will sometimes not adhere to the DAP as well as others. I am not sure why, it will not adhere, but it seems to happen more often that pure chance would account for.

Also, i noticed that a new can of DAP can have a lot of solids at the bottom of the can (this depends on how long it was on the shelf at the store). I now shake every can before i open it and then dump the new can into the old one and shake that up too. This way i can see that i am getting more solids in the first bit of DAP than before. (The very top of a new DAP can is typically thin and runny and the last bit is much thicker.) Mixing older cans and newer cans seems to make it more uniform.

some 100 grit sand paper to prep all, foam and core, surfaces will do you a ton of good in the long run. foam and cores alike have stuff put on the to help the machineing processes, that stuff( oil and such) likely blocks the dap form doing its job.

i like to rough all surfaces before dapping.

bo1 wrote:
i like to rough all surfaces before dapping.

I'd heard about roughing up the foam, but wasn't sure if it was worth it. I'll have to give that a try.

After hearing the pro-foam-smiths weighing in, I will be sure to do the roughing up from now on. To further the question, I also use puzzle-mat boxes, and a camp pad similar to eva, these both absorb the dap somewhat (in contrast to blue camp where the dap sits on top), would these foams also benefit from a roughing up, or does the already porous nature compensate for that?

Something else I've taken on in my last couple of builds; I'll strapping-tape the box layer at the tip, in the middle and at the bottom with 1/2 a strip of tape. In my minds eye this will hold the box tighter to the core over time, I don't know if it's helped on not

Taxfrog wrote:Something else I've taken on in my last couple of builds; I'll strapping-tape the box layer at the tip, in the middle and at the bottom with 1/2 a strip of tape. In my minds eye this will hold the box tighter to the core over time, I don't know if it's helped on not

DAP does not adhere to strap tape unless roughed up. it is actually making a weak spot if the tape wraps around the box. You can use it along the flats to keep the foam from separating, but i would not wrap around box where blade will adhere.

EVA soaks up DAP and it is not an issue. (other than once you stick something to it, it tears free the foam rather than separates)

I ran into this issue a while back with my reds. I took the advice to wrap it with hockey tape. I noticed the first layer of dap seemed to soak into the tape and i had to apply a second layer. It then seemed to work great so far.

I run my fiberglass cores over real quick with my wire well that's part of my bench grinder it works perfectly as it doesn't leave grit like sand paper will. Also do not rough up the blue foam as you'll cause little tears that will later turn into large tears and cause the weapon to fail.