Mark,
here is a copy of the email in question, and the site for the glue
Robert

--- In harryproa@..., sigurd grung <nosupersnail@y...>
wrote:
> Thanks Mark. Took me a while to understand how your
> bearing system works: when extended, the bearings on
> the female and male are on top of each other so there
> is no clearance.
>
> I was going to suggest building up small ramps with
> epoxy, on both sides of the plastic band.
>
> If you have rounded insides of the beams you can
> compression-fit the bands in these grooves inside the
> female.
> You might also be able to weld the strips together, in
> a groove around the male beam.
>
> But it appears that there are glues that sticks to
> UHMW:
> http://www.garlandmfg.com/plastics/bonding.html
> PSA backed UHMW strips:
> http://www.garlandmfg.com/plastics/pstape.html
>
> here is a forum page with a discussion of the subject:
> http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/Forum1/HTML/009217.html
> Here is a page with lots of slippery tape, teflon and
> UHMW amongst others:
> http://www.cshyde.com/tapecat.htm
>
> Sigurd
>
> >Hi Sigurd,
>
> Both the male and female beams have a band of epoxy
> glue at the ends and 400mm from the ends, the bearing
> thickness being half the clearance. This way when the
> bearings are not aligned there is plenty of clearance
> for telescoping. This is important if you want an easy
> telescoping boat.
>
> Yes I did consider plastic bearings but plastic
> bearings of half the thickness of the clearance (like
> the epoxy bearings) become too thin to screw onto the
> beams and I don't know of any glue that sticks to
> UHMW-PE (though there may be). If you use plastic
> bearings of full thickness on the ends only you lose
> the telescoping clearance with the added problem of
> the bearings preventing the beams from coming fully
> apart (and assembly impossible).
>
> The epoxy bearings worked well and are easy to make. I
> only used bearing pads on the bottom angled faces and
> not on the top. As it turned out they don't need to
> be tight when the beams are extended. We tried sailing
> the boat at folded width which meant the bearings
> weren't aligned and despite plenty of clearance the
> beams didn't rattle around at all, even in rough
> water.
>
> I agree plastic bearings would be a good solution if a
> way to fix them could be found.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
>
>
>
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