Needed: Advice on best material for special application

in article snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com, Tennis Smith at tennis snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote on 13/10/03 10:01 pm:

Why not use a dense wood and 'sleeve' it in a resilient polymer?

OK, I'll jump in on this, given some of the more expensive solutions offered. Try G-10 (or G-11 or G-9) Phenolic. It's available through most plastics companies "off the shelf" in rod and sheet. It also is relatively inexpensive when compared to Peek or some of the others.

It does have to be machined with special tools--I think diamond tipped , but most certainly carbide tipped and plan on resharpening often.

Barring that, you could step down to C, CE, L, or LE phenolic--cheaper and easier to machine--common woodworking tools will work, just don't plan on the tools lasting long. Also, on the surface, these phenolics look a little like wood-albiet with a fiber.

Some of these will fall within your price range and should fulfill most of your other criteria.

Lyle

Cool idea. Not sure what sort of plastics company you have in mind. Can I go to "Tap Plastics", or is it some industrial supply type of company that will have them?

Interesting idea. How do you put a sleeve on something? Is it something that a layperson can do, or is it some industrial process?

Great idea. I'm told it is UHMW-PE, correct?

It really sounds promising, but I can't find it in "dowel" form. Any ideas who might have it?

-Tennis

If you were to try a piece of steel rod about 12mm diameter and slide it up inside a piece of garden hose you might have a cheap unit that won't do a serious injury. Maybe even a layer of silastic to glue it all together.

Once the piece of steel rod gets a few bends it could be straightened in a vice.

Hope this helps, Peter