Gasket design

[Charles Bishop]

I have an aluminum plate (actually about 150 of them) that I'd like to be able to make gaskets for, to prevent water intrusion. The plates are approximately 3"x7" and they will be installed on a smooth surface, using

4 screws, one in each "corner". The screws are in from the corners approximately 3/4" so the gasket will go on the "outside" of the screws.

Ideally, I'd like to cut out the gasket in one piece and it would be 1/2" wide on all four sides. That is a rectangle with a hole in the middle, and the size of the gasket portion is 1/2" on all sides. If I cut it out of one piece, there will be a lot of waste of material. This isn't important if the material is inexpensive, more of a problem if it's expensive. Um, say $0.25 to $0.50 per gasket would be acceptable, but possibly more if necessary.

Oh, thickness is probably 1/8" and the material should be flexible. It's to seal out rain, often wind driven.

Any suggestions?

[Roger Shoaf]

Run a 1/4" bead of silicone around the plate and then set it on 4 stacks of

2 nickels set on a sheet of wax paper on a table. If your table will hold 17 of these plates, lay a layer of wax paper over them and repeat until you have each stack 10 plates high.

A tube or two of silicone, a roll of wax paper, and 17 rolls of nickels. Sounds to me like this will fit your budget. Especially as you can return the nickels to the bank when you are done.

[dpb]

Charles Bishop wrote: ...

One of my favorite cheap material sources for gasket material is the old inner tube...

[jacko]