Make a Giant Grommet!

Have you ever needed to pass some wires through a rough hole in sheet metal? Well I have and if you don't protect the wires from the edges of the sheet metal, it will eventually cut into them and create a short circuit.

This giant grommet is one way to protect them.

If I had a 30 watt Zing 16 laser cutter like the prize of the contest this is entered in, this Instructable would be about using a rotary indexing table to make this project, but I don't so we're going old school.

Tools

• Hole saw set
• Drill or drill press
• Vice
• Saw

Materials

• Thick hunk o rubber
• Screw with washers and a nut

Find your suspect hole and get a hole saw about ¼" larger than the hole. Next find one that will fit inside the hole.

Using the larger hole saw, cut the grommet out of the thick rubber.

Find a screw of appropriate size and length and pass it through the rubber. Tighten it down with the nut. Chuck it up in the drill press and turn it on.

Using the saw, cut a slot ¼" into the side of the spinning rubber. Don't go too far though. If you cut as deep as the smaller hole, you'll end up with two donuts instead of a grommet.

Remove the screw from the rubber and drill the smaller hole.

This grommet was a very heavy duty piece because I'm passing many cables through this hole. Because it was so thick, it was hard to work with. One thing that really helped was that it got pretty hot during the drilling. This made it easier to install. In fact, I don't think I could have installed it if I let it come back to room temperature.

Just in case you were wondering, the hole was already there. Even though I would have made a cleaner cut to begin with, I would still use the grommet.

Please vote for this in the Epilog Laser contest! Thanks!