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There may come a time you step in dirt, mud, or something odd and it gets onto your
grip tape it takes away some traction or it makes your deck less grippy, and so you may
want to clean your grip tape. There are a lot of videos out there that recommend using
window cleaner and scrubbing with an old toothbrush. The problem with this method is that window
cleaners like Windex have solvents in them that can affect the resin that holds the grip
together. Some standard grip tapes are perforated, meaning that there are tiny holes all over
the sheet to eliminate air bubbles when applying it to a deck. Water and window cleaner can
soak through and get into the wood, making the deck soft and/or ruin the adhesion of
the grip tape. Also, the bristles of a toothbrush are not strong enough and durable enough to
scrub deep into the grip tape. What we recommend using is a piece of natural rubber, and you
can find these at a few places. At a skate shop it s sold under the brand name "Grip
Gum for eight dollars, and at almost any hardware store you can find a stick of belt-sander
cleaner for around six or seven dollars. You can also find small pieces of the same rubber
at an art supply store for around two dollars and it's pretty much all you need, and it's
used by people who water paint and for removing rubber cement. Ask for a rubber cement pickup
or cr pe rubber. Here I've got an old deck where you can see that one half of the deck
is clean and the other side needs some cleaning. The rubber is only really only good at removing
dust or whatever is just on the surface of the grip tape. To get deep to remove stubborn
crud, we like to use a very soft wire brush. It's a lot tougher than a toothbrush and soft
enough to not ruin the grip. We use a fine brass wire brush that was about $.50 at a
local hardware store. This similar steel brush is good to but had stiffer bristles so be
gentle if you use it. Any wire brush like a barbecue brush will dull the grip and possibly
make it worse than it already is. Here's a really good spot to use as an example of what
can happen when you try using just the rubber. It doesn't work very well the more I rub,
it just still looks the same. But when I use a brass brush to get the dirt that is deep
in the grip tape, it starts to come to the surface. As you can see, it works pretty well
To wipe it away, I just used the rubber, and now you can see how much better the grip tape
is now. On this deck here, I applied of the top long board grip tape brands that use really
coarse grip for the grip tapes. The brush and rubber piece may not be good enough [0:02:19.6]
removing everything on coarse grip tape. We went a little extreme and covered these grip
tapes in mud and then let it dry. Since these grip tapes are so thick from being covered
with resin to hold a lot of heavy grit, it is okay to use water to loosen up the dirt
that is deep in the grip tape. Just get your brush and water and scrub in sections. Before
we use any rubber to wipe dirt away, use a rag to soak up the mud that we now created.
You can use paper towels, but it can tear up and get stuck in the grip. Continue to
clean sections or spots that you missed. As you can see, this method alone works pretty
well, but keep in mind that this grip tape is wet so it looks nicer than it actually
is. The rubber doesn't work well at all if the grip tape is wet. What happens is that
the rubber gets wet, too, and it will just slide over the grip tape and dirt. We keep
a hair dryer handy to dry off the grip tape quickly. Now, you can see how it looks worse
when it dries but when we use the rubber stick, we can get it looking a lot better. Your grip
tape probably won't get back looking brand-new. But it will function like it does, and that's
what's really important. Hey, that looks pretty good to me! Let's do one more piece really
quickly to show some more cleaning. Just dip your brush in water, scrub an area, pat it
with a rag, dry it off with a hair dryer if you need to, and then finish cleaning with
a piece of natural rubber. There, now that looks pretty good! We know there are multiple
ways to skin a cat and the same goes for cleaning grip tape. We feel that this is the quickest
and simplest way to clean grip tape without doing any possible harm to it. Of course,
nothing beats a new sheet of grip tape, so if your grip tape is old or worn down, you
may want to consider replacing it, and if you need help removing it or applying a new
sheet of grip tape, check out the videos that we have on how to get that done. If you have
any questions about this video or anything skate related, send us a message and if you
want to learn some more tips, check out the rest of our videos or click around ratvision.com.