Written January 2017, jackbellis.com
JackBellis@hotmail.com JackBellis.com
When the rubber 'temples' wore out on my Nike 6020 eyeglasses I was surprised to find out that they want you to buy brand new $200 frames because a $2 part wears out. No, that's not the surprising part. The surprising part was that there wasn't even a generic option. I spotted some ugly plastic ones but they didn't even seem to be long enough because this particular frame uses a very long temple.
I tried that plastic dip stuff for tool handles. Didn't dry smoothly.
I tried custom mixed silicone plastic (I do a lot of artwork so I have stuff like that). Too thin... and the one I had was pink. I'd have to do a lot of layers and gave up. (Hmmm, maybe I should have tried harder, or used a similar 'molding rubber' that is meant to go on in layers.)
But just around that time, I started thinking of using wire insulation. The right size happened to be the green plastic that covers "cyclone fence" wire! I had a roll of this green-plastic-covered wire
https://www.hardwareworld.com/pw3as66/Steel-Wire-DandOLine-100-feet
But that, by itself is too thin to be comfortable. So I looked around for something to put on top. And just the right size turned out to be the black plastic on the outside of bicycle cables. Here's one, but I see you can get all sorts of colors now.
You have to pull out the metal inside. Just cut a 6-inch section and bend it a lot to make it pliable and it should slip out. If not, try warm water, then a hair dryer, then a torch but when your house burns down, don't blame me.
http://www.niagaracycle.com/categories/xlc-brake-cable-housing-universal-black-lined
To slip the black over the green, again you might need to warm it. Don't use any sort of lubricant or it will never stick.
I did put a little bit of that black plastic-dip stuff (my first attempt at a solution) between the two layers to make the black part stick and not rotate. And I put some of the black stuff in the open end to make it look nicer.
The bicycle stuff even wears nicely, getting a flat, not glossy, finish in a few days. Now I'm gonna look for some of those funky colors.
Questions Answered (part of my effort on The Commoditization of Questions):