I picked up a trick that works great in how to make vibration suppression pads for very little. Using some rubber matting I cut six circles to fit an aluminium egg cooker/fryer (see pic). Then I placed cling wrap over the egg ring and then placed the rubber ring inside it. I then filled the egg ring with white silicon and then covered the top with cling wrap. When set, I then placed another piece of cling wrap over the egg ring and then placed the rubber ring inside it, filled up to the top of the ring with silicone and the placed a silicon/rubber ring doublette on top of this and let set. Peel off the cling wrap and you have two rubber rings with a thich silicone filling between them. Work perfectly for vibration suppression.
Regards, Allan Gould
I tried something like this but the silicon never completely dried. Suspect I used the wrong type. Just curious about what you used and how long it took to solidify?
As an alternative, I found some offcuts of thick rubber underlay matting now used in children's playgrounds - looks like it is made from chopped recycled tyres, and is about 4-5cm thick. This seems to work quite well too.
The silicone that I used was Selleys Wet Area Silicone sealant (white). Each silicone layer was about 7mm thick; giving 5mm rubber, 2 lots of 7mm silicone and another 5mm rubber. Total thickness was about 25mm. I let each layer of silicone dry for 24-48 hr with cling wrap on, and it dried fully.
Hope that helps
Allan
I have the stock Celestron VSPs and they purport to use a material called "Sorbothane". I first came across the material when used as in-soles in my mountaineering boots, to reduce the impact effects of heel strike and lessen foot fatigue.
Here is some stuff from the Sorbothane website:
From the Sorbothane website: Sorbothane is a proprietary, visco-elastic polymer. In addition to being visco-elastic, Sorbothane also has a very high damping coefficient.
Sorbothane combines shock absorption, good memory, vibration isolation and vibration damping characteristics. While many materials exhibit one of these characteristics, Sorbothane combines all of them in a stable material with a long fatigue life.
Sorbothane has a low creep rate compared to other polymers (rubber, neoprene, silicone, etc.)
Sorbothane has a superior damping coefficient, over a very wide temperature range, compared to any other polymer. Sorbothane’s operating temperature range is -20° to +160° Fahrenheit (-29° to 72° Celsius).
Sorbothane absorbs shocks efficiently for millions of cycles.
