Friday - September 02, 2011

Where O Where

Help !

I built a new table top for a customer the other night. It supports a 50lb precision plastic parts cutting machine. The machine holds the bit of plastic inside it, and carves it to precise shape using computers and lasers and stuff. To cool the part off during machining, it gets water sprayed on it. Chips and dust and rinse water are vacuumed off and sent down a flexible drain pipe to a pump/filter/catch bucket affair. This means there are a couple of flex lines and a 4 3/4” diameter drain tube sticking out the bottom of the machine, and that means that the table had to have a big old hole in it for them to fit through.

The reason the customer needed a new table top was that the hoses and tubes underneath have not always been watertight, and over 26 years the 1” thick melamine coated chipboard table had rotted away. I suggested some quality exterior 3/4” plywood and some genuine Formica sheeting as a replacement, but he didn’t want to spend the bucks and we settled on the off the shelf 3/4” MDF sheets at HD that come pre-coated with melamine. So I built the table, put on some iron-on edging, and called it a day. I cut a 5 1/2” hole for the plumbing, and lined it with more of the iron-on edging. I fear that that will not be enough. So I thought about it, and I have a solution, but I don’t know quite how to implement it. And I think the hole should be just a bit bigger to give the flex lines a little more room.

I need a flange of some sorts, whether it’s hard plastic, rust proof metal, rubber, silicone, whatever. I’d like it to have a 6” -7” inner diameter. I’d like the cylinder part of the flange to be about an inch tall or just a tad less, so that it sticks all the way through the hole. It doesn’t matter what the thing is made out of; either contact adhesive or silicon caulk will glue it down and keep the edges sealed, pretty much forever.

And I want it to be cheap. $100 is out of the question. So is $25. Under $10 would be best, especially if I can find it locally. Some standard off the shelve thingy I can use. The cover from a stack-pack of CD-RW discs, only another 1” or so in diameter. A 2” piece of 7” PVC pipe? It can be ugly; no one will ever see it.

I thought that a trim ring from a 6” recessed light can might work; I can get one of those for $5. I thought that a flange for 6” PVC pipe would work ... and it would, but it costs waaay too much. Roof boots for vent pipes? Could work. I can get one for about $15. Rubber toilet flange for a 6” stack? Maybe. A really really big rubber grommet would do the job. Caplugs or a large plastic core plug. You know that plastic do-dads on your cubicle desk that give the PC wires a place to go through? Like that, only way bigger. A flange mount for 6” or 7” flexible vent pipe. It doesn’t have to be open on the end, as long as I can saw or drill it out, but I’d really prefer that it was. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be round; lozenge shaped is fine as long as the smallest opening dimension is 5 1/2” ... I thought of that first, and looked at brake light gaskets for trucks. Great idea, just what I want, but not big enough. Some kind of molded boot?

I’d rather not gin up something I have to build or extensively modify. I’d really prefer some kind of drop in thing I can screw and glue in place. All it has to be is cheap, waterproof, and big enough. No contact will ever be made with the thing, so it doesn’t even have to be strong.

Got an idea, maybe even a link? Thanks!

Posted by Drew458     on 09/02/2011 at 06:37 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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