How to get new rubber on a wringer?

Picked up a wringer for $5 but the rubber rolls, as usual, are almost dead.  Is there a way to re-rubber wringer rolls?

I would love to know this.

I'm counting on there being a way. I just haven't had time yet, to track 'em down. I thought I'd start with Lehman's, for reference. They tend to be pricey, though, so I'll only buy from them, if I can't find them, anywhere else, lol. I'll check etsy, too.

I have one of those too, though only for decorative purposes.

A thought: antique car guys use glycerine to revitalize genuine rubber seals. I wonder if that might apply here?

I have an idea that I'm running past an old work buddy who's in the rubber roller business.  Getting adhesive backed strips of foam rubber and sticking them onto the metal core of the roller in a spiral wrap.  Just need to figure out what kind of foam/rubber will have the best chance of working...

Neoprene or
EPDM or
???

Mike, are you able to take it apart, or will it crumble? I haven't even tried mine, yet (with anything in it), so I'm not sure if three rollers will still work, if with pressure. In one of the (FEW) sites where I found information, a woman was asking how to refurbish hers, and came back and said she'd patched her rollers with silicone caulk, then slipped a piece of bicycle inner tube over each roller. But, if yours won't roll, the bigger problem may be internal dryrot, if the gears are working.

The electric ones have weird tensioning parts inside, but Icouldn't find pics of the innards, on the manual ones, so I'm guessing they're just solid. I did find some pics of antique, where the rollers were simply solid wood, with a square, metal axle,  inside.  Some rollers even had teeth.

Oh, that's an interesting idea...  

Mine roll just fine.  The issue is that they're rock hard and cracked.  They won't compress at all and I think they'll disintegrate if I tried to use them.  Wrapping with an inner tube may bring back the squish, if they don't fall apart inside the tube...

I don't remember them being all that squishy, but, without a little squish, they'll crush buttons and not wing thinner stuff, I think.

The whole idea of the glycerince treatment is that the rubber swells back up. Does it restore the mechanical properties of the original? That is frankly unlikely where the old rubber is being worked under tension. I suspect it's more applicable to seals and gaskets. FWIW. My 2c.

One thing we do for typewriters is to get a broken innertube from a bike tyre (usually free at the bike repair shop) and pull it over the platen and if needed, shink it a bit with a blow dryer.  

r ranson wrote:One thing we do for typewriters is to get a broken innertube from a bike tyre (usually free at the bike repair shop) and pull it over the platen and if needed, shink it a bit with a blow dryer.  

great idea!  if the inner tube is a slight bit tight try rolling it like a stocking and then roll it on, you may also try a piece of pvc pipe that is about the correct size to roll the tube up on and press it up against one end a nd then start rolling it.

Shrink tubing might work, but may be too hard.  The shrink tubing comes in a lot of different sizes.

There is a product that goes by a couple of names, Plasti-dip, Grip dip, that rubberizes tool handles.  It can be dipped into the container or spread on .  If you poured an amount of this in a tray and rolled the roller through it, like a paint roller; and could keep it rotating while it set up (a few minutes) so it was even and concentric, it would fill the gaps in your hard rubber and give some 'squish' back to the roller.

I have built a wringer for washing and I am going to try and see about using 1/8” or 1/4” adhesive backed silicone rubber. It is nearly indestructible and should work.

You can buy rolls of rubber that are like 1/8th of an inch thick. I think starting with epoxy you could affix the first layer of rubber to the pin, then layers of rubber cement should allow you to build up the layers until you get the thickness you need.

Incidentally I have one of those too. You don't see them that often even in antique stores though, but do work well for handwashing clothes. It should be put on the Low-Tech subforum to let people know off grid ways of washing clothes that work.

Here is mine, although not a great picture, but you can see it standing up in the far corner. Here it was shown with just one metal tub and not both.