Carrington's post on 11/17/05 got me re-interested in the difficulty of finding O rings that fit 1.25" metal patio door rollers from Lowes' Home Depot, etc., and gave cause for further research to try to get a satisfactory fit for these suckers.

While several O rings of required thickness are commercially avaialable, the ID of these is far too great to fit these particular rollers, from what I've been able to determine.

Bruce added that if www.mscdirect.com doesn't have it , it's probably not commercially available. Bruce, that post was a jewel!. None are commercially available far as I can tell, however, MSC has O ring stock materials that will probably work well. That leads to custom O rings fabrication for a particular solution.

While no O rings of required dimensions were found, MSC does, indeed, have O ring stock material in the required thicknesses, in 100' lengths or cutable to any required length.

I ordered 50' of the Buna-N (Nitrile) material in 1/4 inch thickness and it should arrive tomorrow. Cost was 25 cents/foot. plus shipping.

From what I understand, and from some practical experience, this particular material is probably best glued-up using "ethyl" CA, rather than "methyl" CA for fabricating O rings. Those patio door rollers appear to require roughly 4" of material to fashion an O ring. That's a cost of a little over 8 cents/ ring + shipping + ethyl cyanoacrylate adhesive. I've been buying sewing machine bobbins tires that would semi-fit these rollers at between $1.05 -$1.50 each, and the durned things didn't fit optimally, shed fine roller particles and would sometimes just break for no apparent reason. They were also dificult to find in my locality.

Sorry for the long post, but thought it might help folks that like to build their own "stuff " - also wanted to provide a follow-up to the O ring thread. I'll post my experience with this material after Thanksgiving.

Regards all, thanks & a good holiday season to each of you'al.
Stan







Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2005 11:51PM by Stan Gregory.

I dont know what the material is called, but a friend of mine that is into clock repair uses a type of drive belt between the drive motor pulley and his precision lathe (ie Sherline lathe) that is round in shape. He makes his own drive belts from a material round in shape, red/maroon in color and comes in long lengths. You cut the material to length and using heat from a small flame melt the ends and fuse the material together to form the belt. I used the same material for "o'rings" on dryer wheels. The material si available in different diameters and you by it by the length.

I haven't looked for it lately but I am certain it is available since he still uses it....

Lou

Do you know the name of the material and who sells it?

Tom

Tip on glueing O rings, cut the stock on a fairly long diagonal in order to present a larger surface for adhesion.

Finally something on here that I know something about! I have sold industrial belting for about 30 years, and am very familar with round belting. There are all different types of such thermoplastic (ie melt-together) belts available. Most are polyurethane, in a variety of durometers (hardnesses).
The nitrile rubber o-rings are usually about 65 - 70 durometer. The softest urethane belts are about 85 durometer. This is a little harder, but should work ok for such "tire" applications.
They are available in just about any diameter you would want. Regular industrial pricing is:
3/16" $37.91 for 100 feet
1/4" $51.97 for 100 feet
5/16" $82.64 for 100 feet

These are joined together by heat, but it is not a good idea to just use a flame. The splice is problematic, and more importantly, poisonous fumes are given off. It is better to use a heated flat blade on a soldering iron.

If anyone wants any more info, send me an email. I don't think mine is hidden, but if it is, you can reach me at sbroadwell@bowmanhollis.com.

Steve Broadwell

Stan, maybe this is a bit late on my take on the o rings, but I went the other way, I use in line rollerblade wheels for the supports, Individually the wheels are quite expensive, about 8-9 dollars each, and for two stands I needed six wheels. I went to walmart and bought a set of youth rollerblades for 12 dollars, and got 8 wheels. I then sanded the rough edges off the wheels, and when I place the rod in place, I just wrap a short strip of masking tape on the contact areas and go for it. Have a good Thanksgiving, Galen Briese

Galen,

I used the rollerblade wheels for my first wrapper and they work great. I opted for the metal patio door rollers this time because i found that sometimes the roller blade wheels were so thick and bulky that they got in the way (imo). I saw a lot of the metal rollers on the photo page, so decided to give it a try...they seem to work except for finding adequate buffers .

Carrington

For what its worth, I use two small diameter O rings in the door rollers side by side and then put a slightly larger one over them. Works great and these O rings are available and any hardware store.

How about sections cut from bike inner tubes ? Stretch them over the rollers. A bike shop probably throws them away.

This may help, I'm not sure.
I use o-rings for aircraft repair and as an A&P I can tell you that there are many, many sizes. They are all prefixed with an MS part number so perhaps what you need is under the MS part identification tables.

Like said before. tape bearing and wheel so they turn as one. Put on a turner. Fill with epoxy. When dry it will take two facet o-rings from pluming supply
[www.rodbuilding.org]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2005 08:20PM by bill boettcher.

The material ordered wasn't received yesterday. I'll post something when it comes and is checked out for usefullness. I look forward to workimg out a better "tire" solution for these particular patio door rollers., right, wrong or indifferent. Stan.

This is the best on-line source for o-rings that I have found. [www.oringsusa.com]