Every once in a while I get these emails from "Vintage Tractor Engineer". They are "How to's" on doing different things on a tractor.
The one I just got was on making gaskets. One of their hints was, if the part is small enough, to put it on a scanner bed and scan it. Then cut it out and place it on the gasket material and trace it.
The other one was to use a ball peen hammer on the larger gaskets. I was a machinist mate in the Navy and made a lot of gaskets that way. We had a lot of big flanges on large pipe and pumps that needed gaskets. There were no ready made gaskets so we always had to make our own. We just placed the very thick gasket material over a flange and used the ball peen hammer to pound into three holes around the gasket. Then we'd put three bolts in to hold the material in place and go around with the flat face of the hammer to cut the outside and inside edges of the gasket. It worked very well. Most of these flanges were at least an inch and a half to two inches wide so it didn't matter if the hammer rounded off the edges of the flange a little. I spent a lot of time doing that.
The one I just got was on making gaskets. One of their hints was, if the part is small enough, to put it on a scanner bed and scan it. Then cut it out and place it on the gasket material and trace it.
The other one was to use a ball peen hammer on the larger gaskets. I was a machinist mate in the Navy and made a lot of gaskets that way. We had a lot of big flanges on large pipe and pumps that needed gaskets. There were no ready made gaskets so we always had to make our own. We just placed the very thick gasket material over a flange and used the ball peen hammer to pound into three holes around the gasket. Then we'd put three bolts in to hold the material in place and go around with the flat face of the hammer to cut the outside and inside edges of the gasket. It worked very well. Most of these flanges were at least an inch and a half to two inches wide so it didn't matter if the hammer rounded off the edges of the flange a little. I spent a lot of time doing that.