Rad valve gland packing?

That's what I would use (but then I have got some, and I wouldn't knock John Rumm's method). It's *not* PTFE, it's nylon thread with PTFE as a lubricant.

"Proper" separate chevron rings of packing are used in industrial-sized valves, but not necessary for domestic water or CH.

Reply to
newshound
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Hemp has never been use by the manufacturers in valve stem packing. In days of your asbestos fibre square section packing was used lubricated with graphite. The modern equivalent is made of PTFE. NOT Cord but a woven square section rope.

Hemp is only of use to seal pipe threads along with a paste of lead oxide and linseed oil. Substitutes were found for the lead oxide which were not revealed but were allegedly non toxic. ("Boss white" and "Stag")

Reply to
harry

You shouldn't spread misinformation on topics you have no understanding of.

Reply to
harry

harry wrote Complete bollocks from begining to end.

But then harry generally does.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Pot, kettle, black.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Ok, then I do indeed have a 'hank' of that in my plumbing bag. ;-)

And I'm also aware that it is not without some odour as it has been placed on my (bald) head many times by mates thinking it might improve my look (and smell). ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

Ah! Thanks for the heads up.

No, I couldn't see how you could possibly manage that at these diameters.

Cheers, T i m

p.s. Another thought would be the use of a PTFE washer top and bottom and a stack of suitably sized 'O' rings, lubricated suitably? Of course you wouldn't apply anything like the tension on the top nut but ...

Reply to
T i m

Hemp, flax, jute, cotton, and other natural fibres, plus synthetics like PTFE, Aramid, and rubber like plastics, also various ali and cu foils and meshes have, and are still, commonly used in gland seals.

Yup, that as well.

Also commonly used.

Its one use, but certainly not its only use. It can be used on non threaded joints in cast iron downpipes, or caulking plank gaps on boats for example.

Boss white is not suitable for wholesome water applications either - you need something like Boss Green.

Reply to
John Rumm

Has dribble started posting as harry? (I know it was not always easy to tell them apart at the best of times!)

Harry, why post stuff that is so trivial to invalidate?

Lets see what plumbers hemp looks like shall we?

Here you go:

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Reply to
John Rumm

Yet another reason not to use it on drinking water taps then ;-)

Still will be ok on a rad valve.

Reply to
John Rumm

Just how complicated are you trying to make this? Wind something round it and do the nut up!

Reply to
John Rumm

Thin garden twine (hemp, and usually green) works well. Best to dig out some of the old grot first, and also lubricate with silicone grease (or other thickish grease).

Reply to
Ian Jackson

Hokum and Oakum!

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I understand there are some (many?) taps that effectively isolate the gland when the tape is in the fully 'open' position but I'm not sure if these are they.

Quite (and sorta my ethic on stuff in general, even if I'm never going to appreciate my efforts). ;-)

That was my background thought (but I wasn't sure how long it would take to harden).

True.

Ah. ;-)

Any idea what 'Jute' string is?

Well, funny you should say that. I'm now trying different solutions on different taps and keeping a record of what I did where. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

Mum had a tin of 'Garden twine' but it was brown and looked the same as a roll of stuff I bought earlier from Homebase as 'Jute' heavy duty parcel string?

Yeah, I'm stripping the whole valve down to clean a lube in any case.

I've tried 'Plumbers grease' and a heavy white waterproof grease so far.

Some Googling suggested 'wool' and 'petroleum jelly' as well. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

So, what are the properties of hemp that make it so good for these roles do you know OOI?

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

I'll add it to my test range then. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

p.s. Any idea why the valves at the tops of the rads seem to be gate valve types but those at the bottoms are a rotateable cone type (only valve / rad)?

Also, is there a technique for screwing the gate valve bodies back on when the two components have complementary threads (like a bottle-screw).

Ie, if you unscrew the gate from the stem and the stem from the body, the body thread will change as you screw the thing back together?

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picture doesn't show it well but the 'gate' bit unscrews with a counter thread to the man thread, so the two work together to reduce the number of turns from open to closed.

I think I counted the number of turns to screw the tap into the housing and then subtracted that from the turns of the spindle though body?

Reply to
T i m

I'm not, I can't help it if I find such things interesting!

Ah, but you see, it isn't as straightforward as that is it?

ie, If there isn't enough 'something' then it easily compresses and the collet under the nut is then sitting on it's shoulder.

If you try and push more 'something' in there it's difficult to get the collet on and the nut engaging to start with.

Even using the original / fairy compressed 'string', nipping up the nut with a spanner, winding the spindle up and down and then testing the nut again means you can undo (and sometimes) do it up further with your fingers?

And 'done up' needs to be sufficiently turnable so that it doesn't leak and an 80+ yr old can still do it on 7 taps. This gorilla being able to turn it is no test. ;-(

But, I'm there, she's not, it's interesting and I'm enjoying myself and that's the spirit of d-i-y after all eh. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

Possibly not - yours look like more of a gate valve design than a more traditional tap arrangement. Only way to be sure is to try and see. (gate valves have a bit of a habit of allowing seepage at the best of times, although for this application that does not really matter unless you want to remove a rad for decorating).

a n other natural fibre - similar to hemp and flax etc.

Report back in a decade, which worked best!

Reply to
John Rumm

Gate valves are often slated for many jobs, but are actually well suited to applications where you want to throttle the flow of a fluid. So in the roll of a traditional "set and forget" lockshield valve they will work well. For the tap that will be used for more frequent (potentially) manual control of the rad, a more traditional tap style arrangement will be better.

Possibly a bit over designed for a rad valve ;-)

What if you screw the tap spindle up to the fully open position, then screw the gate on snugly?

Reply to
John Rumm

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