Po' Boy's Blanchard Grinder

[Crusty]

I use EPDM "ranger bands" to keep things bundled together. Most of them get an oil covering in pretty short order and I haven't seen any deterioration. I'm a fan of EPDM, it's strong and durable stuff.

For you materials guys, there's two other materials that I want to mention. The first is Kydex, a thermoplastic sheet commonly used to make handgun holsters and it's useful stuff. Heat it with a heat gun, bend it to the shape you want and hold it there until it cools and you've made an object that's surprisingly rigid and tough. Didn't like that last forming? Then just reheat it and try again. If you need to join pieces of it superglue works fine. For me the .090" thickness seems to be a good choice for both strength and moldability.

Another useful material is Insta-Morph moldable plastic. Heat it in boiling water, finger press it into your mold and you've got a tough, custom molded object. I use it to produce positives from internal volumes that I can't easily measure. I press it into a space, pull it out when cooled and then use it as a model to make a copy in metal which will fit into that space, but it might also be tough enough to fix some broken thing that otherwise isn't fixable.

Another source for thick vinyl is unwanted backyard swimming pools. I see them often on Craigslist for free and one old pool would probably provide you with a lifetime's worth of durable draping shields.