Many Shimano cassettes, such as the CS-M8100 (XT, 12 speed) have a thin adhesive ring (part number Y0GX01500) on the back side, where it sits against the Microspline freehub body.
Unfortunately, these can easily be lost as they tend to stay on the freehub body when removing the cassette. Which is exactly what happened when I sent the NOBL wheels from my Mach 4 SL‘s in for a warranty rim replacement. Some folks advocate for removing them, believing them to cause cassette wobble, but the main purpose seems to be eliminating noise and fretting between the cassette and freehub bodies.
Since I don’t like bike noises, I wanted another. They can be bought online for something like $9/ea before shipping, but that seems like a lot… So a better solution? Make one!
Measuring a new ring on a spare cassette showed it to be 37mm OD x 33m ID, roughly 0.2mm thick. I have some 0.0115″ / ~0.29mm (Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMW PE) tape from McMaster-Carr (part 76445A764) that I use for rub on bike frames, so that seems perfect. Kristen cut a ring out with her Cricut (with a Deep Point Blade, set to “thin cardboard”), I stuck it to the cassette, and that was that. Much better than spending $9 and waiting for it to arrive.
I had originally tried to print one with PETG filament, but when the first of two broke coming off the build plate I figured it probably wasn’t the right material and would come apart under load, leading to a loose cassette, noise, etc. UHMW PE tape is very malleable and often used to stop noise between rubbing parts, so it seemed like the better choice.
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