Non Slip Anti-Slip Mat Sticky Pad ?

[Jay Steel]

Anyone using those Non Slip Anti-Slip Mat Sticky Pads that you can buy on Ebay for less than a couple dollars for hold downs rather than the anti-slip mat I just priced for $48.00 from an engraving supply store?
I know that the ones on Ebay are about 5.5"X3.5" and the one from the engraver supply is 8"X10" but doing the rocket science math, per square inch, the "cheap" ones are less than 1/5 the price. (You would have to buy 4 of the "cheap" ones, about $8.00, for about the same square inch total) :confused:

[Gary Hair]

I went down that path a couple of years ago and the ebay pads just didn't work well enough. They tended to be too "cushiony" compared to the other mats. When you engrave, especially rotary, you need the piece stuck down flat as well as not moving around the surface, the ebay pads held it ok but because they had more cushion they tended to move around - hard to describe exactly, but the bottom line was that it wasn't working for me.

I have, however, found a manufacturer of sticky mats designed for clean rooms and such that is willing to work with me on a custom mat that will work for engravers. Their stock mats have the stickiness we need on one side and the other is very strong to hold it to the floor. That is fine for cleanrooms but not when you need to remove it from your engraver when you don't need it or have to clean it. The custom mat we are looking at will have the same adhesive on both sides as they currently have on the top, it's not actually an adhesive but the composition of the material that makes it sticky. I'll have to buy 500 lineal feet of it, but at the wholesale pricing he has mentioned so far I think I can sell it at about 1/2 what the "engraving" mats go for now. After I do some more testing I'll decide if it's worthwhile and start marketing it. I'm aware that I can't do that here without becoming a vendor, but I'm nowhere near that yet. Hopefully this post hasn't crossed the line but it's truly just information at this point, not marketing or "testing the waters".

Gary