There is a complicated story here, which I will abbreviate for everyone's sanity.
I have a part-built futon. Where the two halves of the futon -- i.e. the bits that form the base of it in "bed" mode, and the bottom and back of the chair in "sofa" mode -- hinge, they used to have a pair of plastic bits and I need to replace the plastic coz I've lost it.
One half of the futon is drilled quite small, about 6mm or so, and has a long nut and bolt that fits that hole. The other half is drilled to about 25mm diameter; the wood is 30mm thick. In those two large holes are supposed to be cylindrical lumps of plastic which also have 6mm holes drilled in them. The bolts pass through these holes in the plastic and bolt them onto the first half. Then the hinge works as the plastic turns inside the hole on the second half of the futon. I hope that makes sense without a diagram.
So, I need to fabricate new plastic bits: I need to buy some plastic bar, cut to length, and drill a hole up the middle.
So, my question is, from
these guys (who seem willing to sell me the bar stock at reasonable prices and lengths, i.e. not in 5m segments), what plastic do I get? I don't know what the original bits were made of. I don't think it was as exotic as PTFE, although that springs to mind as clearly the plastic needs to be slippery and quite tough. The
black Mos2 lubricated nylon might be a good choice I think -- is nylon easy to drill? I know a lot of plastics you sometimes need special bits for, others you can just go very slow.
This leads me to the second question; I need to drill the plastic very central and very straight or this isn't going to work. Is that going to work out with a hand drill? Ideally I'd want a pillar drill but I don't think I can get access to one.
Any DIYers want to advise me?