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Post by Lagger on Jul 9, 2017 13:23:50 GMT -6
Being short of cash is not fun, I'm trying to save some money here and there and one possibility is to make my own paper gaskets. Today I made a couple, one of which was a base gasket. I thought a short how-to might be useful to anyone thinking of doing this, please feel free to pass on any tips to help do this better. This is my attempt today. I started by taping a piece of gasket paper to a good flat surface, I taped it to stop it moving around when I was marking out the outline and cutting: Next I measured the diameter of the cylinder to that I could mark out a circle to cut: Having marked and then cut out the circle I placed the paper over the cylinder and pressed it firmly against the mating surface to create an indentation to mark the gasket outline and then marked the outlines with a pencil: I then cut around the outside and then used punches to cut the various holes. You'll ideally need a set of punches. I also used an old sledge hammer head covered with a piece of leather as a soft anvil (also included in the picture is another essential ingredient - a bucket of tea!): I cleaned up the edges a little and this is the finished item, not too bad for a first attempt:
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Post by hagger on Jul 10, 2017 8:32:28 GMT -6
Nice job there, making gaskets is often needed in any mechanics life.
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Post by Lagger on Jul 10, 2017 8:56:38 GMT -6
Nice job there, making gaskets is often needed in any mechanics life. Thanks - I was quite pleased with how this turned out. I have a few more to make and then I'm ready to re-assemble the engine. The prices that KAW want for some of the simple paper gaskets is crazy - bases gaskets are around $9 a pop and I bought a 5 yard roll of gasket paper for less than that!
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Post by hagger on Jul 10, 2017 8:59:59 GMT -6
Sometimes the gaskets you make are better than the stock ones.
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Post by Lagger on Jul 10, 2017 9:10:52 GMT -6
Sometimes the gaskets you make are better than the stock ones. Could well be, the one in my pictures here is only the second one I've made, practice makes perfect. The set of hole punches I bought aren't all that great though, not especially sharp and not holding a sharp edge well, too soft metal I think. That's part of the reason I'm using the leather covering on the hammer head anvil - to protect the punch a little. If I was going to be doing a lot of this work then I would invest in a proper quality set of punches.
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Post by hagger on Jul 10, 2017 10:48:54 GMT -6
I use a block of wood for that, it saves the punches.
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Post by Lagger on Jul 10, 2017 13:43:54 GMT -6
I use a block of wood for that, it saves the punches. Yeah, I tried that first but I couldn't find anything hard wood, soft timber was no good as the punch was pulling the paper into the wood. Hard wood would be better than my anvil though.
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