homemade coil spacers?

[lakailimited06]

anyone ever work with Starboard before? My dad uses it alot at the marina when we make bow pulpits/swim platforms/switch panels/dashboards etc etc...its pretty much just a hard plastic made out of some type of polymer or something and its maintenance as opposed to teak which is why we use it so often...

tonight we started making these hull light spacers and i was thinking hmm i wonder if its strong enough to use as a coil spacer...heres what gave me the idea:

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p271/jasonbrinch/IMG_3171.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p271/jasonbrinch/IMG_3174.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p271/jasonbrinch/IMG_3178.jpg

i know they're cheap enough to buy but i have tons of scrap i could use and the tools to make them i just dont know the strength of it...what do you guys think?

oh and it only comes in sheets of 1" max but i can work around that..

[Comanche717]

my dad uses that stuff for cutting boards! its actually really strong...

[lakailimited06]

yea it is pretty strong or it seems so anyway...im thinking about sticking a piece in a press tomorrow and seeing how much it takes to collapse it/make it explode..

its solid stuff, so it wont compress or absorb any impact like the polyurethane ones...but i've seen people make them out of aluminum so i guess it doesnt matter...

[565matt]

I made a set out of solid teflon once.... worked pretty well. It actually had a little compression to it.

[purple xj]

give it a shot if it works make more and sell em

[HuLuD44]

IDK about that material. The shock on the water vs. the shock on land is completely different. They may not shatter, but over time i think they will deteriorate or loose there shape. You need something a little less rigged, hence why people use hockey pucks. But who knows. Give it a shot. WCTW they break and you pull them out...

[lakailimited06]

i think they would work...today i took a 5" diameter piece of 1" and put it in my press at work...i had it rest on a piece of I beam 3/8" thick put side ways so it sat like this (H)...then i put a 3" diameter piece of 1/4" tube on top of the plastic and pressed it down...well it bent the 3/8" I beam so i put it the other way like this (I) so the I beam now has the brace in the center...i pressed it down pretty hard where it was getting difficult to go down any further and the only thing i can see that happened was there were marks pressed into the plastic maybe a 1/16" from the 1/4" tube...

i think thats pretty strong for plastic and it will only be a bigger diameter than that...

[HuLuD44]

wow, if thats the case go for it. Cant argue with test results. hahaa

[565matt]

I say go for it.... I work in a machine shop that works with a lot of high end plastics. Some are a lot stronger than people would think.

[lakailimited06]

hmmm....thing is i dont need any more lift until i run 35's and go long arms...im going to make some small 3/4" ones for the front just to see how they hold up...

[565matt]

I guess its time to upgrade to the 35's...lol