Vinyl Tubing Cylinder

Anyone ever experimented with using flexible vinyl tubing as a cylinder? Just bought a two foot length of heavy duty 1.5” ID clear vinyl tubing at home Depot and a 1.5” barbed insert plug, both from the plumbing section. Advantages I anticipate: won’t shatter or break, easily obtained, cheap, and the slight flexibility will allow for easy experimentation with oblong shaped cylinders (and perhaps even a dynamic cylinder?) while being firm enough to resist collapsing.
Can’t really see any disadvantages atm, but let’s hear them.

The final design will use the old autozone/harbor freight hand pump, using the suction cup attachment against a hole drilled in the end of the plug, or maybe adding on a check valve if i want to get fancy.

I suspect at high vacuum it will collapse as the main source and direction of the force will be to pull the tubing inward.

Otherwise, maybe something useful. I’m unsure.

You are the pioneer on this one. Keep us informed on how it goes and remember to take some pics. If it doesn’t collapse up to say 5”hg, it might just work.

Well, hit one temporary snag only in that I simply underestimated the diameter I’d need. The next size up that they carry is the 2” inner diameter, I’ll give it a try tomorrow. On the upside, the hose certainly wasn’t coming near to collapsing even when I tested it at very high psi without being inserted into the tube. Even if somehow that were to be a problem, Home Depot carries braided vinyl tubing as well, which is designed to inherently resist collapsing even mores than the clear vinyl already does, which it certainly does seem to.

One potential drawback of the vinyl is that dry skin doesn’t seem to want to glide across its surface very easily. Could be solved with lubrication or again may not be an issue with the larger diameter tube. We’ll see.

Overall, feeling very positive about this! Will have to update tomorrow after I try the next size up.