This seems like an item that one should be able to buy from a hardware store, though I have yet to see anyone to actually stocks them, but I am looking for somewhere that sells the rubber pump cups that are commonly found in many inexpensive pumps, and what they're actually called, so that I have a fighting chance at finding them. I'm hoping to rebuild a variety of pressure lamps, heaters, torches, etc. and am hoping to just find the right size cup to throw in it, espeically when a rebuild kit is hard to find or overpriced. I also don't have a readily available source of scrap leather for making new cups, and have much to learn about making those. (I'm guessing it's pretty much soak the leather and then force it into a jig to let dry.) Anyway, I'm looking for a vendor to get the cups from, so that I can pick whatever size I need.
You're not alone. They used to be quite commonly found in agricultural supply and hardware stores. Leather cups in various sizes used to be widely available as spare parts for the pesticide or fertilizer sprayer pumps. A lot of pumps are now made from o-rings on plastic or metal pistons. Some cups may be made from neoprene rubbers too. These aren't very desirable for classic lamps amd stoves. Neoprene's ok for water-based applications but is not fuel resistant.
While I knew rubber pistons weren't as desirable for collecting and resale, but from a testing and usage standpoint, I fail to see the problem with it. I know some rubbers such as neopreme are eaten up by rubber, but some, such as what is used on the Colemans seems to be able to resis it fine. If nothing else, it would definitely let me pressurize the appliance to see how well it works, or get a few projects out of it until I decide to do a "serious" restoration. Again, I would figure they would be readily available somewhere, as that seems to be the modern contemporary design of many things made today.
They are still available from a fair number online stores via mail order, ..ebay, Amazon, etc. Yes, you can still make your own from leather or some elastomers if the search for these in convenient brick and mortar stores doesn't turn up too well. Honestly, I'm not exactly a fan of online shopping too. I'm one of those who still prefer to drop in to some hardware stores across the street and just buy whatever with hard cash. For non-leathers, there are some that are made of oil and solvent resistant elastomers like edpm and viton but these are usually only limited to industrial users. Nevertheless, you might still get lucky to find something suitable on certain small-bore bicycle pumps and manual sprayers. The only problem is, their basic assembly or designs might not be similar to those in pressure lamps and stoves. Besides those, there really aren't that many modern day devices that use hand pumps for operation.
The Fettlebox do a range of leather pump cups Pump Leathers - The Fettlebox For less common sizes have a look here Leather cups price list
It actually took me awhile to find the one I need for my current project on there, but haven't found the assortment until now.
Alright. Thanks. I just haven't seen where it says yet, though I've been jumping around the site quite a bit, led mostly by Google, or rather, Duck.
