I wouldn’t try making them from a hard material. It doesn’t move with the hangar properly and just gets chewed up. I’ve made them before by lathing a bushing down. The durometer is a matter of finding the balance between where its too hard to move with the truck properly, or too soft to reduce hangar slop.
I definitely found them to make a difference on the torqueboards 218mm caliber II based trucks I tried them on, with a stronger centre feel that was reassuring in a straight line, at the expense of the lean ending with a more hard stop feel like what you get from cupped washers. I think the riptide WFB formula could be quite good for DKP inserts as the lower rebound will reduce the two pivots fighting eachother which could become more pronounced with high rebound inserts
I’m thinking urethane would be the best material for the rings. Riptide WFB formula may be a good place to start. Maybe a stiffer (95.5) and a softer (around 73) would be a good place to start. On the faster rebound side, a Riptide Krank set using 96 and 84 might be useful to compare and contrast. The ones I use from Onsra are 100a durometer and work well. I could send a set of bushings to anyone willing to lathe them. Maybe @Tony_Stark ?
It’s used in all sorts of stuff haha, we bought it to use in a research lab for developing compliant mechanisms, so i’d imagine it should hold up to lots of repeated compression cycles. Not too sure how much rebound it would give you though, as it’s only 50A duro.
It was pretty dodgy tbh. Urethane does not like being machined, so its not something I would like to do again if I can avoid it haha they were a pain to make and far from perfect
There are commercially available urethane plugs for trucks.
I think theyre called truck hangar slop plugs or something like that. I bought them from sickboards.nl for Caliber IIs last time. They have different ones for different trucks.
The type of urethane we use for bushings and wheels cannot be remelted, its poured from a part A and B that form a chemical reaction which cant be reversed, similar to epoxy. If you want to experience an idea of what the inserts feel like the easiest way without a lathe is probably to try 3D printing them in flexible filament with enough wall layers that it becomes solid
Imo you should check out the riptide chubby bushings. If your hangar supports it, they have a step that helps get rid of slop like the plug inserts. I found them to make a massive improvement to stability when running boardside with barrels/cones road side
I have tried chubbies and use them on my Onsra Challenger to really control truck movement. On all my TKPs, I use 93a and 96a fat cones. Great stability yet retain my ability to carve.
