Surgical Tubing

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by laditek

We have used polycord (metric) in the past and welded it together. To make the best loop. it must be stretched first and then melted together.

A good weld is remarkably strong in polyurethane belting. A 0.375 in V-belt, welded with a hot plate (with a sacrificial metal sheet on top, and a jig to assure alignment) couldn't be separated by two people pulling very hard on it with pliers. (Granted, that's a sizable area under tensile stress, so a lot of force is logically required.)

Originally Posted by Kevin Ray

The best method of connecting ends of surgical tubing that I've seen yet--especially if you want to use it as a loop is to cut about 1.5 in. of pneumatic tubing, then roll back .75 in. of the the surgical tubing onto itself (like folding down socks). Place a few drops of crazy glue on the pneumatic tubing (half of it). Unroll the surgical tubing onto the pneumatic tube. Duplicate the process with the other end of the tubing. The weld will NEVER come apart and is minimally larger than the original diameter of the surgical tubing. We have used that method for many years with no failures yet.

That's a very good idea. Any information on which tubing materials work best for this? (Synthetic vs. natural rubber? Polyurethane vs. other pneumatic tubing?) I've had good success bonding various synthetic rubbers (e.g. neoprene) together with Loctite 409 cyanoacrylate. It's expensive, but works nicely for the purpose.