Originally Posted by
cycledogg
Thanks for the insight. FYI: My "old skool" glue procedure is what I also call 24/12/12. Clean the rim as good as possible, I prefer as-new surface, then apply the first thin coat on the rim and let dry 24 hours. Second coat as thin and also apply one thin coat to base of tire, let dry 12 hours. Last coat on rim, and tire, mount while wet. Center tire, inflate to approximately 60 psi. Roll wheel to mesh tire/rim together. Dry 12 hours. Vittoria Mastik. Removing tire was never easy. Never had a roll off. I just was thinking of using tape for a change.
Then your gluing is more similar to what we do. I still do 2 coats rim and 2 tire and 24 hrs between each. 1 wet mounting coat (thickish) only on the rim. I have the luxury of having a lot of rims laying around so the tires get placed back on a rim and stretched again just before mounting. Stretches the base tape and creates gaps in the dried glue that allow the fresh glue on the rim to seep into those gaps and makes for a great bond.
Mounting - I mount and pump to compressor max (88-110 psi) as that usually helps straighten the molded tubulars like Donnelley, then straighten and roll under load. Then I deflate the tire all the way, roll it on a broom handle that one of my employees labeled as "Special tubular rolling device Not a broom" then back up to 40-60 psi overnight for a cure.
All that's great but if a racer flats and needs a new tire for the race the next day it's the euro style of light coats and moving from one to the other with about 6 minutes of cure time in between. It sticks and stays but isn't nearly as hard.
I don't know what tone you're taking all this with but I assure you I'm not sitting here assuming you don't know what you're doing or that you're doing it wrong. Too many people in this sport do that when it comes to tubulars. It's like this old school of knowledge and everyone thinks their way is the only way and that's just not right - as you know.
The tape will produce more of the bond like what you have. The tape is really nothing more than regular mastik with a different solvent or additives. It acts like regular mastik. Treat it like regular mastik and I believe you'll be really happy with the results. I may be moving a lot of my operation that way....with a few more years of trials.
See when you glue your own and never have a problem you have confidence. When you glue hundreds for others that race and depend on your glue job to keep them from serious injury, etc. then your business is your reputation and your reputation is only good until 1 rolls. Out of the roughly 1,000 we've glued in the last 10 or so years I know of 5 or 6 that have rolled. I have done a "post mortem" on every one I could to ascertain a cause. That's how I discovered that Mastik varies widely between batches. Heat in transport greatly affects it (buy Mastik direct from Vittoria when they are working off stock they received in the colder months). We treat it like it has a shelf life and eliminate that to a great extent. We buff the base tape on almost all tires to clean them and eliminate any dirt or oil. We strip latex from basetape completely. It greatly reduces our ability to remove a tire and not destroy the base tape but that one time you have a rider go down and their fiance looks at you with terror in their eyes and asks, "what did you do?!" can cause you to reflect on your technique. A lot.
There's some studies out there. Best one is really old at this point and I was hoping to re-create it using modern techniques. The information about what works and how well shouldn't be out of reach of a quick internet search.