Re-felting tube rings

[Pixies]

I'd like to re-felt the tube rings on my Vixen 80M. I purchased some self-adhesive sheets from  a local art shop, but the felt was pretty thin and didn't appear up to the job.

The old felt is hard and dense - like the felt pads you get for furniture feet, except thinner. Of course it's quite old now and very compressed. I tried doubling-up the new stuff, but that made it so thick, I couldn't close the rings.

Can anyone recommend a suitable source for felt?

Cheers.

[johninderby]

Last time I did this I bought a roll of self adhesive felt strip from Amazom.. Comes in various thicknesses.

Edited June 27, 2022 by johninderby

[ONIKKINEN]

This is a bit of a MacGyver solution, but thick and soft tape like gorilla tape will do the trick. The felt lining in one of my rings came off and i just put a patch of gorilla tape in there. Seems to be holding nicely and prevents metal to metal contact just as well as felt would, and since its hidden from view no-one will know that you fixed your scope with tape.

[DaveL59]

never used or tried them but found this on a web search, 1mm thickness and varying width available.

Adhesive Backed Black Felt Tape -10 metre coils (britishfelt.com)

[jjohnson3803]

Another possible alternative is rubber craft foam - comes in several thicknesses and is very inexpensive.  You'd have to glue it onto the rings though. 

I used it to reduce the inside diameter of a camera lens ring mount for a 50mm finder.  And I did use non-super glue so I don't have to chisel the stuff out if I want to remove it.

 

[PeterStudz]

7 minutes ago, jjohnson3803 said:

Another possible alternative is rubber craft foam - comes in several thicknesses and is very inexpensive.  You'd have to glue it onto the rings though. 

I used it to reduce the inside diameter of a camera lens ring mount for a 50mm finder.  And I did use non-super glue so I don't have to chisel the stuff out if I want to remove it.

 

I’ve used craft foam for various telescope DIY applications. If you don’t want to use glue then double-sided sticky tape sticks it well. You can also use Gorilla Double-Sided Mounting Tape (as has been suggested which in itself is thick and rubbery. 

[lguise]

Another possibility could be the soft loop part of Velcro . The heavy duty variety is really sticky but expensive. The cheaper less sticky version you can buy in shops like Dunelm would be fine inside rings. I used this to make some slightly oversize rings grip a tube.

[markie]

Hi All

I just got some felt underlay and cut it into small squares, (it doesn't have to line the whole ring), stuck it down with strong double sided sticky tape and you get enough to last a life time works a treat.