Small, hard surface roller for peel ply compression?

[Guest]

I once had a cheap 1” plastic roller, originally used to apply inventory labels, and used it to knock down the transition edge of kevlar felt skid plates back in the bad old days. It was a cheap plastic thing that eventually broke under pressure, but it was handy while it lasted.

I laid a custom skid plate sandwich yesterday; 5oz Dynel over 15oz, 12 ml thick bias weave tape. Even using a rudimentary roller (a drilled dowel on a nail axle) atop the peel ply the thick tape and selvage edge came out unnoticeably flush, and the edges of the Dynel are equally smooth in transition to hull.

P4260040 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

The hard roller even knocked down 99% of the inevitable curvature wrinkles and crinkles, including the folded vee tips, and the skid plate is pretty much ready for paint (in a few days/week). But I really don’t need to use both hands to manipulate a roller.

I’m ready to spring for a good quality hard surface roller, something with a better axel, or maybe bearings, something that will stand up to pressure. 1 ½” wide +/- seems about the perfect length for skid plate work where there aren’t many flat areas.

Any ideas for a small, hard surface roller that will stand up to compression pressure?

 

[pblanc]

There are a variety of hand-held rollers sold under the names of wallpaper seam rollers, tile rollers, etc. available on Amazon or at hardware stores. Perhaps something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Deadening-App...ocphy=9016679&hvtargid=pla-526183979459&psc=1

I can't vouch for it personally, but it looks as if it might work and the reviewers seemed to like it. In fact, I might order one. I am tired of breaking the cheap, plastic jobs that I buy at Ace Hardware.

 

[Guest]

Perhaps something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Deadening-App...ocphy=9016679&hvtargid=pla-526183979459&psc=1

I can't vouch for it personally, but it looks as if it might work and the reviewers seemed to like it. In fact, I might order one. I am tired of breaking the cheap, plastic jobs that I buy at Ace Hardware.

Thanks Pete, that’s the one.

We still have a couple of glass & nylon decked canoes that need at least sandy beach Dynel skid plates, and maybe an impact underlayer along the sharp vee stems for rocky landings. With my skid plate technique and materials improving those boats are next in line. A good roller is called for, and I don’t want to buy another flimsy one.

I know firsthand how well those sound deadening mat rollers work under forceful pressure.

We (eh, Joel, I just cut the material to spec, handed it to him and watched) used one of those rollers to install sound deadening materials in the back of a naked wall cargo van. It requires a lot of forceful roller pressure to properly compress/adhere that material. Like a hundred skid plates worth of pressure, grunting on your knees, leaning body weight into that roller in the back of the van. All accomplished in a single day.

PA231289 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Joel was aching by the end of the day. I was plumb worn out myself, from walking over to the van every 5 – 10 minutes and handing roller-boy another pre-cut piece of sound deadening mat. My supervisor’s hat almost got sweaty, and I lost my beer at one point. Oh the humanity

https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/00000150-0641-dd38-ab58-ff45504a0000

But that roller held up fine. Thanks, mine’s on the way arriving tomorrow.

 

[Guest]

The sound deadening mat roller Pete linked to arrived today

Plenty sturdy, identical to the one we used to install 3 boxes of sound deadening mat in the cargo van. Much better than the flimsy all-plastic wallpaper rollers.