The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Ever made a gasket?

I need a gasket for the coolant intake where a thermostat sits on my Willys.

Can I make one out of heavy paper and some Form-A-Gasket? What color Form-A-Gasket works best for wet areas?

Most parts stores have bulk gasket material on a roll, or at least by the sheet. I used to keep three different thicknesses of 18" wide rolls of gasket paper hanging on the wall of the tool room in my school shop. Trace the shape of the flange you need to seal, and use an X-acto knife or a box cutter to cut the outline of the part. Hint- - - -use a piece of plywood as a backer. Cutting gaskets out on Mama's kitcken cabinet top will get you in the doghouse in a hurry - - - -don't ask me how I know!
Jerry

Yep, get a roll of rubberized gasket material at your FLAPS & cut your own.

Other than the head gasket and manifold gaskets, I make all the gaskets for my truck...all my vehicles actually. I like to keep a few rolls of paper, rubberized and cork in the shop all the time. You can save TONS of money making your own. Be inventive too if need be. Today I made a cork gasket for the glass bowl on my AC fuel pump. Thing is, I ran out of cork gasket material but I had a box of 'O' guage model railroad cork road bed material. It was a little thicker than the FLAPS cork material but that is probably a good thing.

thats funny i guess it wasn't funny at the time was it?.

when i was in boiler "A" school in the navy the first thing they taught us was how to make a gasket using a ball peen hammer. since still being in the boiler business i have made a lot of gaskets with a ball peen. i have also made them with a knife. for me the application determines if i use a knife or a hammer, both require patience. if you buy a roll from your flaps unroll it and let it lay flat for a day with something heavy on it to cover the roll to get rid of the memory the paper has gotten from being rolled up and on the shelf for six months. it make it easier to handle when making the gasket with the memory removed.

I make quite a few gaskets too.
But very rarely will I make one instead of buying a ready made when available. I've found that more often than not buying one is cheaper, faster, and better than making one.
Sometimes it is cheaper to make them though, working on a small Hercules two cylinder lately and the gasket place wanted a few hundred for a kit, that's ridiculous. A kit for one of my Detroits is about $85 and has a whole bunch and several big ones.

Grigg

Another gasket tip: When you find your NOS thin paper gasket is shrunken, wrinkled, or otherwise won't fit anymore a soak in water will make it pliable again and possibly usable without tearing.This is especially a problem with the super thin gaskets commonly used on motorcycles.

Finished!!

I used this method:

Making gasket video: ball pien hammer method.

Been makin’ them like that for half a century Jim, thought everyone knew about that method. That's the way me pop taught me to do in a pinch if I ever got stuck without a gasket for something. Cept I wouldn't use a paper bag for gasket material when there is gasket material available everywhere. I keep a good supply of paper and cork gasket material in stock. The gasket for the Eaton HO52 cover was paper thin, good enough for a casting like the pumpkin but not the best for a tin cover so I cut one from some 1/16” material so I could sleep at night. Just recently I had to make the gaskets for my steering box rebuild. The ones that came in the kit were shrunk up so much that the holes wouldn’t line up worth a darn so I made my own. I make my boltholes a little different than the video because they’re usually chamfered rather heavily in castings to make sure the mating surfaces go together flat with out a burr from over tightening. I impress the location with the rounded ball peen head then punch them out with the proper sized hole punch.
But normally I would always use a die cut or laser cut gasket if one were available.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Ball pien hammer method works well on thin paper--not so well on cork and thicker paper because the sharp pattern edge is cushoned.
motorcycle gaskets and small engine gaskets for cast covers with thin sealing surfaces alongside the hole are devilish things to cut precisely without misalignment of holes.I keep an assortment of steel balls to use instead of the ball pein and before tapping the ball into the hole I pierce the gasket material in an X pattern in the hole so the material will not be pulled inward-only cut.Also I keep several really small c clamps to clamp the material to the piece serving as a pattern to prevent movement as i don't have enough hands and good help is never there when you need it. I keep a few sizes of arch punches (leather punches) for the heavier material that must be punched and I have made punches from a piece of brake tubing sharpened with an edge on the inside with a small reamer.Cuts just fine just not as durable as a store boughten punch.
A good investment for cutting really small holes is the hand punch/pliers we see on the tool board @ sears/lowes/home despot and others.These are really nice for carb and magneto gaskets.
I've really learned to love the use of anaerobic (not silicone)sealers without gasket when the situation is right.A metal to metal bolted joint with this sealer doesn't flex and distroy the gasket that isn't there.Permatex/loctite ("right stuff")has some but not in small tubes and is darn costly and doesn't store long.Honda and Yamaha has some in small tubes but I havn't tried it yet.
Happy cuttin'

Ya know ...

This is why I like this site so much. You "real" mechanics take time to relay your wealth of experience to us not-so-real mechanics.

A lot of things that you guys do automatically without thinking are like an epiphany to guys like me. I'm always willing to do something that I have never done. Usually get it right on about the third try. But this site helps me (sometimes) get it right the first time!

My hat's off to all of you.

....when I was young, and penniless, I have made a many gaskets with the ball peen hammer, sissors and made a lot of them out of cardboard saltine cracker boxes. Mother was always complaining about me emptying the box...well, I did eat a lot of peanut butter crackers to.

As Lonnie says, thanks for your insights.... I like the one about keeping different size steel balls handy. Makes sense to me.

I couldn't have said it better myself, too.

There's another little trick I use a lot, since I have thousands of empty brass cartridges around for reloading. A .30-06 case sharpened by beveling the case mouth with a pocketknife is a perfect size for cutting out 1/4" bolt holes in gaskets, and a .38 Special case works well for 5/16" bolts. .45 Auto or .45 Colt cases work well for 3/8" and 7/16". If you've got a .50 BMG case around, it works for 1/2" bolts nicely! Don't hammer on the cases, just push down and twist them over the spot you want to cut for the bolt hole.
Jerry

Over the past ten years (three restorations, two in progress), this hole punch set has come in real handy for making gaskets, punching holes in linoleum mat material, and in thin metal.

This tool is also handy in the shop and around the house.

I think both of these types of tools are described in the above posts.

Well since your showing your’s I guess I’ll show mine.
Some assorted punches I use for cutting holes in leather, paper gaskets or any kind of soft material:
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/135657101/large
Rather than a ball bearing to transfer a hole, how bout this dapper punches:
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/135657119/large
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Man, Denny those balls-on-a-stick are top drawer but I guess they might take up a little more room.
And you don't have to chase them across the room because of a mis-lick.
So you gents make a set of these.pick a ball that suits the need and braze,silver solder or tig it on an appropriate rod and there you have it.Still won't be as purty as Dennys' though.

....gosh Denny, you brought back memories. I wish I had a nickel for everytime I used those Whitney no.5 hole punches when I was in construction.

I've used my nephews stuff a lot but since I moved I better head on over to Harbor Frieght! Thanks guys.

PS..I'd have to hide the "steels" as my grandkids love to play marbles.

If you were one of my customers with a broke down car and a stuck theromstat that was overheating from 1973 to 1978 and you heard all that ball peen hammering while you were sitting inside the car along the New York State Thruway between New York City and 6 miles north of Harriman exit that would have been me making a gasket roadside to get you repaired and on your way. (if I didn't have a replacement thermostat onboard I would remove the stuck one and not put one in to get you rolling) I also used to replace those easy MOPAR 4 bolt water pumps roadside. 4 bolts for the fan, 4 bolts for the water pump and you were on your way rather than towed in and spend the night in a motel waiting for the repair shop off the next exit to open the following morning. I still use it today when I have the material and the energy.

Denny, I've never seen "dapper punches" before. Wow, I can think of many times they would handy. Great info, thanks.

I just checked and Amazon.com has dapping punch set listed for $91.44, if anybody is trying to find one. Looks like Denny's pic.

Edit: They have other sets cheaper too!

They are typically used by jewelers not mechanics.

The mechanics on Oahu use a Hawaiian Punch.

Ouch. Been one of those days, eh Jim?

I originally bought the domming set to form light gauge metal parts I sometimes have to make for my restoration work. I've always been interested in metal forming and have bought many hand tools for metal shaping. They do come in handy for other things. An application that comes to mind is the shield for the front motor mount which has two raised dimples to clear the carrage bolt heads.
I certainly wouldn't recommend buying a set of them specifically for making a gasket. In fact if it’s just a couple of holes I need to transfer I just use the ball end of a ball peen hammer which I have an half a dozen different sizes.

DG

In a pinch or too lazy to go to the parts store, Post Toasties box material works for a lot of applications.

an gasket cutter like this http://www.allpaxcorp.com/cgi-bin/a/products/extension.html?id=NsYhV79K is the ticket for round gaskets that have a id larger than two inches. if it needs holes in it a hole punch like this http://www.allpaxcorp.com/cgi-bin/a/products/punch.html is excellant plus you can make little gaskets that dont require holes. since i run power boilers, i have access to both of the deluxe kits. when i can't make one with one of these tools its back to the ball peen and scissors or a combination of all.