Gasket material assortment

[a griffin]

Other than cereal boxes and beer case cardboard, what is the standard gasket material and thicknesses you keep on hand for the various leaky points of your cars?

 

I find the cork based and black composite felpro materials are what I use more often than not.

[Gary_Ash]

Vegetable fiber gasket material is good for oil, gasoline, and water.  One brand is Karropak, at most auto parts stores.  I think it comes in 1/32 and 1/16 thickness, cuts with scissors or Exacto knife.  It's also good to have some very thin stuff, like 0.005" thick; "fish paper" is a typical material, but I'm not sure where to buy it.  Neoprene sheet (BUNA-N) is sometimes useful, resists oil and gas well.

[JV Puleo]

Thin fish paper is readily available on ebay. I had a much more difficult finding thicker material when I wanted to make fiber washers but I did, eventually, find it. I think I got some grey material from McMaster Carr and I got some red somewhere else...though it came in after I'd finished the job.

[Rusty_OToole]

I keep a paper punch for making holes in gaskets, the cheap stationary store kind used for making holes in note paper.

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

Dang, Rusty, I never thought of that.  Not big enough for some but would have worked on the pan gasket. And the punch is hanging above the workbench!

 

  Ben

[Str8-8-Dave]

Fel-Pro makes various gasket papers with ratings stamped on in various thicknesses.  Occasionally I make thick gaskets for tappet covers from cork sheet. 

[JACK M]

 

I bought a cheapo set at the cheapo tool tent at a swap meet several years ago.

Not these but similar. Several sizes.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Leather-Cutter-0-5mm-5mm-Working-Plastics/dp/B07B8RG3KX

 

[m-mman]

3 hours ago, JACK M said:

I bought a cheapo set at the cheapo tool tent at a swap meet several years ago.

So did I.

Nothing that Olsen's would use, but they do an excellent job on the few gaskets that I need to cut. 

[a griffin]

On 5/25/2021 at 4:21 PM, Gary_Ash said:

Vegetable fiber gasket material is good for oil, gasoline, and water.  One brand is Karropak, at most auto parts stores.  I think it comes in 1/32 and 1/16 thickness, cuts with scissors or Exacto knife.  It's also good to have some very thin stuff, like 0.005" thick; "fish paper" is a typical material, but I'm not sure where to buy it.  Neoprene sheet (BUNA-N) is sometimes useful, resists oil and gas well.

I've got a sheet of karropak already and use it as needed. Between me and the manager at the parts house, we agreed that the chemical composition of the sheet smells similar to apple pie. Matter of fact, the smell brought back a memory of his grandmother making apple turnovers when he was a child ( I assume he's in his late 50s.)