All the really old gray beard's by now are in nursing homes drooling on the bibs, the new
crop of gray beard’s are just young sprouts like you Kurt. And I've yet to find any up to
date thriving business like this that hasn't moved on, leaving their past history in the trash
bin. About all they have to offer are a paragraph on the timeline of the companies
acquisitions.
I'm not worried about the valve if that's what you meant buy the urethane seal. You can
see by the 'original' size picture of the disassembled piston, that the piston seal is a special
material not just a plane fabric. It's thin, .028-.030" and is completely sealed with just a
hint of the weave showing on the surface. Also the edges are formed in a smooth cup
shape. That is going to be the real challenge. From what I've been able to extract from the
patents, they were blanked from a treated sheet (my bet is an un-cured sheet) then formed in a
curing die.
None of this is clearly documented so this is all just supposition on my part. I'm not an
engineer so I can't really call this reverse engineering, it’s just an old mechanical tech
taking a guess at how they made things back in the heyday of US industry.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
DG
Last edited by Denny Graham; 02/19/2012 4:22 PM.
