I’ve had the vacuglide for about a month now, so I’ve done some minor stuff to improve it.
First up is using smaller tubes than you’re designed for. I could just about fit into the smallest tube, but the tip of my dick would hit the little pointy silicone cap at the end, I was just a little too long for it. To fix this, I bought an additional cap and cut the tip of the silicone off. This didn’t work, because annoyingly the silicone cap doesn’t have the same hole diameter throughout, so you get too much airflow and the whole thing falls off. To fix this, I glued a thin piece of plastic to the cap from the inside to shrink the hole at the top, restricting the airflow and making it work just fine, although now it’s probably a little more prone to getting blocked with lube. It’s also possible to use the small sleeves inside the medium tube, which might be a cheaper option, but they’re probably slightly more prone to coming off if you max out the valves.
Here’s a picture of what I mean when it comes to the cap, the red piece is the added plastic to decrease the hole diameter back to what the original silicone insert does, glued to the body of the cap from the inside in a cross-sectional view.
Next is hands free. I initially attempted to make a rail based system, but I didn’t want to wear a belt so the idea was to have the rails mounted to my desk. I couldn’t get this system stiff enough with the materials I was using, and it was a bit of a hassle to mount, so I gave up on it. Someone could probably 3D print or machine a version that works.
What I settled on instead was a camera mount arm on my desk (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006963064561.html is the one I’m using, I tried a couple of cheaper ones and they were junk), and some random 20mm wide stretchy elastic strap I had lying around (pictured in red below) fastened to the receiver at the top center. For this I just used a velcro strap under the lip for the cap, and some wire to make an X across the top to give me something to tie the elastic to, so the whole thing is easy to remove. You could probably just glue something to the cap instead to give you a mounting point.
This setup works reasonably well. There’s no way to limit it so it won’t pop off, but I don’t have any real issues with that to begin with. Adjusting the tension of the elastic strap is easy enough, I wrap mine around a hook off to the side, and it’s looped over one of the balls on the mounting arm, which can be easily shortened. My initial thought with the arm is that I could vary its position, but I’ve found I generally just keep it in the same place. The clamp that came with the mount was very good (if you buy the same one, get the more expensive looking mount, I don’t know about the cheaper one), but I eventually removed it and just put a mounting hole in my desk with an insert, which is a little more stable and gets in the way less.
One thing I might get around to trying at some point is adding different diameter silicone rings inside the tube to create varying pressure points along the sleeve, but I’m pretty happy with the current performance, and maybe they’d all just bunch up.
That’s about it. If anyone wants to share any other mods or complain about my images being indecipherable MSpaint doodles and wants further clarification, go nuts.