CNC gasket making

[David Morrow]

I thought I'd put this topic here instead of the CNC section as someone without a CNC mill may be able to track down someone who did to help make a problem gasket. Anyway... I haven't made a lot of gaskets but the ones that I did make were just usable, and not works of art by any means. I'm in the final stretch of making a half sized Moriya stirling fan and am in need of four rather small, thin gaskets. I had never thought to use my Sherline CNC mill for this before other than to make a die to cut the gaskets. This time, I used the mill.

It was a very basic setup. I mounted a piece of 1/2" MDF to the mill and just used some pushpins to hold the gasket material in place. A .0625" end mill was used to drill the 4 screw holes in one gasket and also used to cut all gaskets. The material was .045" thick. I cut the full depth in one pass at 2 IPM. I held the material down flat by hand ( taking great care to stay clear of the spinning end mill.)

They were a little fuzzy around the edges when they came off the mill but a couple of minutes of hand sanding on a piece of wet/dry sandpaper laid on the bench cleaned them right up.

 

[n4zou]

Here is the process I use to make gaskets for small parts.
Place the part on a scanner and scan an image of the surface the gasket will be made for.
Make sure you set up the software to produce a 1 to 1 ratio print.
Also make sure to select a colour that will contrast with the gasket material.
You don't want a black image that will be transferred to black gasket material!
Invert the image to be printed in the software you use.
Print the image making sure it will be printed with a 1 to 1 ratio.
Place the part on the printed image to make sure it was reproduced in the correct size.
Transfer the image to the gasket material by laying the paper print ink side down on the gasket material.
Using a fine artist brush, brush Alcohol on the (backside) of the paper print so the ink transfers from the paper to the gasket material. Place a weight on the paper and gasket material and allow it to dry.
Peal the paper away to reveal the image of the required gasket on the gasket material.
This also works to transfer an image to metal as well.