Abstract: Electrical-resistance strain gages, particularly those of foil construction, are advantageously pre-packaged as conveniently-manipulatable and protected sub-assemblies in which the metal gage grid and its tabs are sandwiched between a flexible tape coated with a tacky adhesive and a partly-cured thin layer of fiber-reinforced resin, the resin layer and exposed portions of the adhesive-coated tape in turn being protected by a removable polytetrafluorethylene cover sheet; bonding of the gage to a measurement specimen is achieved without conventional cementing by removing the cover sheet, abutting the resin layer with a selected surface of the specimen, heating the layer while pressing against the tape to force the gage partly into the layer and to force the layer against the specimen surface, and stripping the tape after the resin has cured, thereby leaving the gage in a firmly-bonded close proximity with the specimen surface, separated therefrom only by a thinned layer of fiber-reinforced resin which also lock