Hi all,

As you guys can often come up with some good out of the box thinking.
;-)

I have an old but very clean (because it's galvanised) adjustable
dinghy trailer that needs some unavailable parts.

Basically it's made from telescoping box section steel tube with holes
though both sections at fixed intervals with a couple of bolts though
each joint to hold the adjustment' (length / width) in place.

However, at each end of the sliding joint there were 'plastic'
collars, to take up any difference between the section dimensions. It
seems these were designed in such a way that prevented you from
actually taking the trailer to bits and so any that were still
remaining when I bought it (second hand) were damaged as it was taken
down to be delivered to me in a car.

Now, I might be able to design and print some replacement items (in
PLA) but in the short term I was wondering if there was a suitably
'strong' tape that might do what was required.

And that would be something that could be bound round the inner
section tube (at the key points at the different positions etc) so
that it can still be easily slid into the larger tube(s), offer some
resistance to the tubes twisting inside each other (axle sections
mainly) and just help to keep the whole thing from clanking when it
goes over holes and bumps.

eg, Insulating tape would be too soft and probably just get crushed
when built up to the required (~1.5mm) thickness so I was wondering if
a metal (chrome) tape might work better?

a 3D printed 'sleeve' would be basically a square box section, about
40 mm long with ~1.5mm thick walls and rounded corners. It would want
to be a close interference fit on the inner section tube (and possibly
glued / pinned into place) and a light sliding fit on the inside of
the larger section tube.

Ideas?

Cheers, T i m