Is there a way to rectify grips that has turned gooey?

[Olsson]

Greetings,

I have several markers from different manufacturers where the rubber (or whatever) grips have started to to turn a bit gooey. The markers are about 20 or so years old, and presumably the grips are about the same age.


The grips look perfectly fine, they feel perfectly fine - but there is like a thin coating of sticky goo all over them.

The grips aren't turning noticeably soft, they aren't visibly deteriorating. They simply seem to seep out whatever clear sticky substance that they become coated with.

It is quite easy to clean the goo away with water and a mild detergent, but it seems to be just a stop gap measure since the gooeyfication process is still going, and with time they will be just as gooey again.



Is this just a matter of fact to be expected from 20 year old grips, depending on the material they were made from? Is there a way to stop the gooeyfication to keep going? Or are my options to either just accept it, or to buy new grips?

I find it odd that I haven't noticed the same gooeyfication on other appliances around my home, that are within the same age bracket. Is the rubber and/or whatever in paintball grips of that inferior quality?

[Ecapnation]

No unfortunately.

Its from the oils in your sweat and paint degrading the plastic combined with plastic just aging poorly.

[Olsson]

Clear and concise. Thank you.


Follow up question - then it should be safe to buy NOS grips, since they haven't been subjected to sweat and paint yet, right?

[Ecapnation]

Clear and concise. Thank you.


Follow up question - then it should be safe to buy NOS grips, since they haven't been subjected to sweat and paint yet, right?

Yes and no.. .

If stored environmentally controlled likely yes

I've bought old store stock in the northeast stored outside where even hearty app wrap around grips were goo.

[Olsson]

Dammit! Don't hit me with those negative waves this early in the morning.

[I Missed On Purpose]

Ive also had alright success with rubber restorer/rejuvinator usually used on car door seals and stuff. Got me a couple more years out of last pair of black dye stickies i had.

[mercpb]

Gooey grips = plasticizer degradation if you want to go down teh internet rabbit hole.

Yes new old stock will be better, but it'll eventually have same issue.
No you can't undo it

[Olsson]

Thank you all for concise and informative answers.

[Grendel]

These grips use TPU, which degrades in the presence of oils; sebum is one of the worst forms of TPU degradation is from sebum. Sebum is the oily or waxy secretions from the sebaceous glands. Once TPU starts degrading, there is no stopping it or reversing the degradation; it will continue to get worse over time. So once you handle these grips with your bare hands, you have caused their demise. There are many other causes of TPU degradation, but this is a major one.

[JonM]

Even without contact with oils, these rubber coatings will degrade with time. I have several electronic devices from the early 2000s that used similar coatings and had to be scraped down to bare plastic despite being stored indoors and barely handled.

[Olsson]

Y'all agree so hard that if this wasn't MCB, I would assume you had a pile of grips to sell...

[tunaman5]

Get a can of the stuff they dip tools handles in. Hang them on a wire and dip them in. Let dry for a few days. Let us know...

[Axel]

In museum and material culture studies, this kind of unavoidable degradation over time, resulting from particular manufacturing processes or material properties and which cannot be arrested or reversed is called "inherent vice."

I KNOW THINGS