The stuff is a PITA to cut, went thru a bunch of razors (buy a box of them) during the final trim. Cut it with metal shears a bit over size and then followed the o-ring groove to trim. That is where precision comes in, long enough that when you screw the head and tail cap on, it holds the edges in and not interfere with either of them seating.
No it dosen’t really hold all that tight, so I used some contact glue on the flats, and when I heated it up over the stove burner (think HOT and Fast with Mass when using this stuff) rotating on a wood dowel I shoved thru the tube, it shrunk fast and set the glue almost instantaneously. The heat gun didn’t work well at all, because your heating just a small area, even when your moving it up and down and rotating the tube at the same time, not an effective technique at all!
So with a larger mass area of heat, the more evenly the shrink. I ran thru 3ft of it like nothing, so I ordered 6ft more. I got a couple more Idea’s for it’s use.
Now even when the tube got so hot, it burned the hell out of my hand when I grabbed the thread area of the tube, the cloth was just barely warm. Froze it over night in the freezer, the cloth warmed to the touch from my hand, so the insulation value, is worth it for me, to further experiment with it. What the hell else do I have to do in the middle of winter, in Michigan!
Here is a shot of the seam….
It’s really tough stuff as far as protection from abrasion and the added value of the insulation from heat and cold it’s hard to beat. Grippy? Not like grip tape or knurling, it’s still grip-able, I really like it on the TN42 and SD75 tubes better, my 2 GT’s are just show (off) piece’s, WOW look at that big sombitch, then you turn it on ohhh/awww back on the shelf it goes! Not that I would ever use it for Work or Lug it Coyote Hunting/Ice Fishing! :person_facepalming: