Vetus UFO Vents

Ralph Johnstone · Mar 25, 2023

WOW ! An O ring from a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object). I guess they are real after all.

But getting on to the "O" ring, making one is really quite easy. I was stuck for replacing the ones in my deck plates which are about 5" dia. and do not exist anywhere.

So, made some.

1. Measure the material diameter of your existing "O" ring.

2. Order up the material of the same dia. from Amazon.

3. Measure the circumference from the old ring.

4. Cut the ends as square as you can.

5. Join the ends with "Crazy Glue" and let sit for 24 hours just to be sure.

You will never see a stronger joint on such a tiny surface area. Trying to tear the joint apart will rip your hands to rat :poop:

. If not, you didn't use genuine "Crazy Glue."

artboas · Mar 26, 2023

Ralph Johnstone said:
WOW ! An O ring from a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object). I guess they are real after all.

But getting on to the "O" ring, making one is really quite easy. I was stuck for replacing the ones in my deck plates which are about 5" dia. and do not exist anywhere.

View attachment 213990

So, made some.

1. Measure the material diameter of your existing "O" ring.

2. Order up the material of the same dia. from Amazon.

3. Measure the circumference from the old ring.

4. Cut the ends as square as you can.

5. Join the ends with "Crazy Glue" and let sit for 24 hours just to be sure.

You will never see a stronger joint on such a tiny surface area. Trying to tear the joint apart will rip your hands to rat. If not, you didn't use genuine "Crazy Glue."

Ralph,
Great write-up, except to suggestions :
I would buy the bulk O ring from a fantasthc industrial supplier in Ontario Spae Naur.
They specialize in selling high quality industrial items in “broken box” sizes for a small adder
In other words, they’ll sell you 5 feet of this, no problem.,
Their catalog (#14) is holy grail for sailors. Every imaginable stainless part in the universe at industrial , not marine, prices. It’s about 4” thick.
My suggestion is to go through their catalog, find a few extra goodies to get to their very reasonable minimum.
Sometimes they are out of stock of the printed catalogs. I have an extra if you need one. You just need to pay postage

second thing
Please consider cutting the o-ring on an angle.
More glue surface .
Just overlap them, take a very sharp razor blade, (cut your chum, not your thumb), and slice together

Ralph Johnstone · Mar 26, 2023

artboas said:
Please consider cutting the o-ring on an angle.
More glue surface .

Makes sense to increase the surface area but believe it or don't, I'd say the final strength is about 95% of the parent material strength even with a 90 deg. cut. I'd say absolute bull :poop:

if I hadn't done it and seen for myself. Strong enough to damn near cut my hands.

Thanks for the recommendation on Spae Naur. Amazon.ca prices are astronomical compared to reality but I only needed their minimum amount. When I need a different dia. than I now have left over, I'll check them out.

Ralph Johnstone · Mar 26, 2023

Further on Spaenaur, their catalogue is now in electronic form for only 242MB at 1717 pages. There goes another Sunday afternoon.

Ralph Johnstone · Mar 26, 2023

c07chrisjohnson said:
Ralph, would you mind posting a link to the material you bought off amazon?

OMG, did I ever get hosed on that one. But, it was for the boat and I had to have it :

This is it on Amazon.ca :

Buna-N material in 10 ft. lengths didn't jump out at me on Amazon.com so you may have some searching to do.

Whatever you do, DO NOT have anything shipped across the border. I recently had to order some high class sanitary hose from Defender Industries as it's not sold here in the colonies. The order was about $100.00 US and the shipping and border charges added up to $95.00 US. But it was for the boat, so I guess it's OK.

Ralph Johnstone · Mar 26, 2023

Actually tripped over it this time on Amazon.com. Different wording :

Amazon.com : O ring cord stock