I have a friend with a plasma nitrogen laser engraving mill. I can for sure cut out gaskets if i can get the right materials and measurements.

I am looking to make head and base gaskets for both FL350 and FL400

Here is info i have:

FL350 base Gasket thickness @ 0.15
FL350 Scan of head and base

Here is info i need:

[X] FL400 Base Scan @ 600DPI(300 will do)
[X] FL400 Head Scan @ 600DPI(300 will do)
[ ] FL400 Base thickness .015 or .021?
[ ] FL400 Head Thickness .032?
[ ] FL350 Head Thickness (what is best?)

Copper or Aluminum? Aluminum for Base? Copper for head? Copper for both?

polished copper? or unfinished copper?
What Alloy?

Anyone have Used Pilot gaskets they would be willing to donate for this project?

so far a 12 inch by 48 inch (.016) thick sheet of copper runs about 50 bucks unpolished, same thing in aluminum runs about 10 bucks. I am still looking for polished metals thinner than .032.

this FL400 head gasket on ebay looks to be unpolished and is .032 thick by description.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/HONDA-FL ... ccessories

How about producing some of the pilot trans gaskets that are no longer available?

any type is possible really.. only hard part would be getting a scan of the trans gasket as it is too large.

I could take it to work and use the large format scanner there though :)

anyone want to get me a scan of a pilot trans gasket? either that or send me one. probably standard wafer material for trans?

Pilot cylinder gasket

Pilot head gasket

Ask your laser guy how flat he can keep the copper and aluminum being that Thin I think he will run it to problems

but I been wrong before

The way I was going after them was steel rule die or some times call a cookie cutter die goggle it

http://www.google.com/search?q=steel+ru ... =firefox-a

I can have the die built for under $150 each fl350 head and base gasket.
and they will cut up to .045 soft copper or aluminum and keep the pretty flat too


P.s. what price where you looking to get out a fl350 copper head gasket and a aluminum base ?


thanks SpeedChaser

here are some measurements i made with photoshop digital ruler. Can you double check these for me on the actual gaskets to make sure the DPI is precise.

thanks for the scans!

it wont be a problem to keep flat i hope, the whole plotter table has a honeycomb mesh and really powerful vacuum. if you put your hand on it, its hard to remove. We will have to paper off most of the open table space to concentrate the vacuum to the area the metal is sitting also.

and as far as price? im not too sure actually. It depends on the price of raw materials. On the forum i don't think i would really be looking to make a profit as i feel i owe something to the community. Assuming i don't have to buy polished finish metal: aluminum base should be fairly cheap. copper would be more. I'm going to look around locally at some shops and see what i can get. I couldn't find polished finish any thinner than .032 (which might be the correct width for head gasket on pilot)

24"x24" @ .032" of polished copper on McMaster is 123 bux!
24"x24" @ .032" of brushed copper @ 100 bux
36"x48" @ .032' unfinished @ 139 by far best deal.

if a 24 x 24 has total surface area of 576 sq.in. and a head gasket takes a little less than 30 sq in i should be able to fit around 16. math would say 19 but the edge doesn't have usable space. attached is a picture that is to scale(but scaled down proportionately) of the layout on a 24x24 copper sheet with roughly 5.5x5.5 sized heads.

so assuming polished copper @ 123 bux/16 gaskets = 7.68 cost per unit to make+shipping(assuming ray doesn't charge me to use machine). What do you think would be a fair forum price? 20 shipped? are they worth more?

Brushed = 6.25 each
unfinished 36x48 = 139/53 gaskets (tough squeeze) = $2.62 a piece

if the unfinished copper are usable, or even if i can buy the unfinished and polish/sand by hand it would be by far best option.

good thinking.. im going to set my drawing up to reference a center point(in the center of the piston top) so i can resize the vector to cut out as big or small of a circle as i need.

also - on the pilot head gasket i have the cooling holes mapped, the 8 stud holes mapped... but what are the smaller holes for? I am going to draw them in either way

When I worked in the leather business we used these type of dies often to cut out several common pieces of leather... You would almost want a clicker or press to cut these!

this laser method might have zero start up cost besides materials.. i don't think ray will charge me, i will exchange computer repair services for use of engraver.

He says it should keep the metal down even if i buy it in a roll...

anyways here is a scaled down image of the complete head gasket drawing

one with measurement mask layer and another without (not these are at 72dpi and not to scale)

base gasket done here are scaled drawings

look into copper flashing it by the roll

speed

Tpreed

what cam software are you or ray going to use to get the math data off the jpeg
or the raster to vector software ?

I been look some thing simple to get math data off scanned jpeg

They make aluminum flashing by the roll too that is dead soft

thanks SpeedChaser

The corner holes are the only thing I can verify on the cylinder gasket and they are correct as you have marked them, the rest is just a guess your trying to measure something if you touch it the measurements vary .010 to .040 where you put the lines its not a straight line for me to measure from its all just a guess where it lands on the gasket.

The Pilot cylinder gasket thickness is .020

The same with the Pilot head gasket trying to measure over all on a radius or curve is all just a guess yeah looks close enough type thing, am I measuring EXACTLY where you marked it on the radius and bends? I really doubt it o its just a guess.

IMO the whole thing is a wash your just going to be guessing and will not know if they fit until you make one then fit it to the Engine parts.

Isn't their a scanning utility out their we can use to scan a true 1:1 scan my scanner no where does it give you an option of 1:1 so you know that's what your scanning.


IMO your wasting your time if you cant get a true 1:1 scan to work from?

All 3 layers of the Pilot head gasket measure .030 thick

i am going to attempt in coreldraw as i have seen it work well in the past.




hoser, i was able to print the image at 300DPI and the measurements were spot on, the main bore opening was 3.190(81mm) on the actual paper so the scans and native resolution of my full size files are perfect

Oh ok cool I never understood the scan thing lol

I was looking at the head gasket their is a lot of the gasket coating around the holes you want me to clean that off and scan again so the holes have a crisp edge?

yea that rescan would be helpful for double checking measurements especially when i vector.. im thinking if the stud holes are a tiny tiny bit off the gasket will still work(like .009)

i might manually trace in illustrator to make sure measurements remain true. as of right now the head and base for FL400 are very very close as i measure lots of comparison distances between different objects to maintain accuracy the proximity of each item to another.

Try this one I also put a machinist rule with it . 300 DPI

awesome thanks



when making a copper instead of wafer would three layers be required? would one layer at .030 be too thin?

Make the copper one layer not 3

http://www.pilotodyssey.com/PO/view ... ead+gasket

I just about have the vector drawn up in illustrator.


Anyone have used pilot head and base to donate for comparison?

I have all kinds of used head gaskets they are steel and don't change much the coating on them just gets damaged, I have a few used cylinder gaskets but used they no longer lay flat and maintain their correct dimension, I scanned a new gasket.

Can you use a DWG of DXF?

I can digitize a JPG pretty quick in AutoCAD as long as I have two known points to scale the JPG to. I can then extrude it to whatever thickness you need and send the model back in BMP, DGN, DWG, DWF, DXF, DXX, EPS, RVT, SAT, STL or even WMF.