Installing Handle Mounts for a Stand Up Paddle Surfboard at Wet Feet Hawaii – Part 1 – Video

[singlepic=1889,188,125] Wet Feet's Clarke 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)[gallery=27]Evan: So wersquo;re looking at a demo board, right?Clarke: This is a demo board and what wersquo;re going to do is wersquo;re gong to continue to set it up with all the various accessories that are available. So people we can demonstrate exactly whatrsquo;s available for stand ups. So, what wersquo;re going to do now next is wersquo;re to put the after-market handles on, which is a popular option. Handles are great both for just basically carrying and lifting of the board and also some people like to put their kids on the front of the board.Evan: Where are you going to put the handles then?Clarke: So what wersquo;re going to do today, for our purposes, is wersquo;re going to put the handles in the center point to carry the boards; to help in carrying this large object. So the first thing to do is we want to find the center point and we can do that very simply, the process of elimination ndash; right about here.Evan: So yoursquo;re just grabbing it and try to find where it balances?Clarke: Yeah, exactly. Ok, so itrsquo;s going to go basically just right pretty much in the thickest part of the deck pad.Evan: I like your professional level.Clarke: Yeah, this is a very technical instrument, hard to find ndash; you have to special order these.Evan: So what we have here is ndash; these are two inserts and then you have the handles, right?Clarke: Right, exactly. The threaded inserts originally developed for kite boarding. So they have an industrial adhesive on the backside, itrsquo;s super strong.Evan: And you havenrsquo;t had any problems with the thing falling off?Clarke: If you have an extra heavy board, the board is really big and you want handles, what we do also, in addition to the adhesive it comes with the pads, is we epoxy the outer area of the pad, which reallyhellip;Evan: But you can epoxy it later then?Clarke: You can epoxy it later. Itrsquo;s easier if you do it all in one shot, when yoursquo;re initially putting them on.Evan: Yoursquo;re not going to epoxy it right now though?Clarke: Irsquo;m not going to epoxy these because the board isnrsquo;t that heavy so itrsquo;s quite adequate just like this. The main thing with these pads too is that you want to put them on the part of the deck that is flat because they are very stiff; they donrsquo;t bend so you cannot put them out on a rail where they might come off. So what wersquo;re going to do is wersquo;re going to inset them right in to the deck pad and wersquo;re just going to cut out the deck pad here and then insert them.Evan Leong: Just putting tape to mark it?Clarke: Yeah. Ok, wersquo;re going to make sure we get this square with our precisehellip;Evan: Where did you put the center of balance? Was the center of balance in the middle of these two things orhellip;?Clarke: Right. Basically you want to have the center of balance right in the middle and yoursquo;re handles are going to go in here. Theyrsquo;re going about 7 frac12; to 8 inches apart.Evan: Ok.Clarke: Something like that. Another option you can do ishellip;Evan: The cool thing is that the handle is flexible, you can be off a little bit and it still works.Clarke: Yeah, sure.Evan: But the ideal width is going to be, is to give it how much play on the handle?Clarke: Basically, you donrsquo;t want the handle flappen around a lot. You donrsquo;t want your feet getting hung underneath it. You just want enough room so you can get your hand underneath comfortably. Another option with this is you can either set the h...