Make: Online : How-To: Cheap standoffs from nylon tubing

How-To: Cheap standoffs from nylon tubing

CuriousInventor points out this head-slappingly simple substitute for standoffs - likely of interest to anyone whose marvelled at how much these bits of hardware can actually cost -

Tan Tran came up with a cheap substitute for aluminum standoffs: nylon tubing. Polyethylene does a decent job too, and can be had for under $.10 a foot at your local hardware store. The 1/4" OD (outside diameter) stuff shown in these pics accommodates up to #8 size screws.

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Posted by: Anonymous on July 10, 2009 at 9:32 AM

Been doing this for years.

I found some tubing that is rather stiff on surplus. The stiffness makes it better if you apply a lot of force when screwing. (Oh, ha ha.) One funny surprise it that the surplus tubing I found glows in the dark.

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Posted by: RK on July 10, 2009 at 2:54 PM

Discarded pens

I have used the body of disposable pens for the same purpose. Just cut what you need.

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Posted by: signal7 on July 17, 2009 at 4:03 PM

I did this years ago. The only hard thing is getting the tubing cut to a consistent length, which is a lot harder than it would seem.

A proper jig for turning out many identical lengths would be much better than trying to do this by hand.

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