Tubular Skiving Seal for a Rotary Toner Metering Mechanism and Methods for Forming the Tubular Skiving Seal

A skiving seal for blocking toner from entering a gap adjacent a rotatable member in a toner container system of an image forming apparatus, the skiving seal comprising:

• a flexible sheet having a surface and a length;
• a tubular portion formed by folding the flexible sheet over itself from an edge extending along the length of the flexible sheet without creasing the fold and adhesively adhering a portion of the folded portion of the flexible sheet to the surface of the flexible sheet along the length of the flexible sheet;
• and
• a first adhesive-coated area unobstructed on the surface of the flexible sheet for adhesively affixing the skiving seal adjacent to the rotatable member along the gap in the toner container system.

A method of forming a skiving seal for blocking toner from entering a gap adjacent a rotatable member in a toner container system of an image forming apparatus, the method comprising:

• forming a tubular portion of the skiving seal by folding a flexible sheet over itself from an edge extending along a length of the flexible sheet without creasing the fold;
• adhesively adhering a portion of the folded portion of the flexible sheet to a surface of the flexible sheet along the length of the flexible sheet;
• and
• adhesively adhering the flexible sheet to the toner container system adjacent the rotatable member along the gap in the skiving direction of rotation of the rotatable member with the formed tubular portion extending toward the rotatable member.