Material Sticker Shock

[Left Handed Spud Wrench]

So working on an End Of Arm for something-something in my workshop that I really shouldn't discuss yet.

Having used up the last of the Torlon bits and pieces I scrounged from a previous employer on another project I decided to price a sheet or two for my latest project...



...ok so time to find an alternative material, like virgin's blood, super-compressed cocaine or even plutonium. Or if I want to stick with practical materials maybe MDF board or some kind of aluminum.

Yow. Now I know why the off-cuts and scrap bits of this stuff vanish from the discard bin so quickly!

[John Stevenson]

Price up PTFE sheet should be a lot cheaper.

[rcaffin]

Torlon may be relying on their rep a bit too much - or maybe McMaster or one of those other similar firms may be. Those prices are ridiculous.

Yes, you can use Teflon sheeting, but it may be a bit soft. Depends on the exact material and surface area.

Locally (Australia), I can use Dotmar green Polystone Ultra for some things: it is used to line those mega-sized mining dump truck buckets to prevent wear. It survives where hard steel cannot. Actually, it is just a modified UHMWPE, and I have used stock black polyethylene (which may be just HMWPE or HDPE) for some jobs as a wear surface - with a LOT of crap flying around. It works quite well, provided you have a large surface area to keep the pressure down low.

For round bearings you can use HDPE or nylatron GSM (a filled nylon 66), or ... many others. For slow speed stuff nylon 66 works fine.

In fact, there is a whole range of plastics which can be used as bearing surfaces, although that screen shot did not seem to list many of them. Find a local plastics supplier and ask them for tech help. Amazingly, you can even hold the more difficult-to-glue plastic sheets down with quite small countersunk screws. Yes, that works too.

Cheers
Roger