Beta project ten (GearHead Special)

Sunday night gearhead special.

Imagine that you have spent more than a year rebuilding a 1940’s era milling machine.

It is Sunday night, and you are FINALLY putting it back together again.

Everything is going great until you discover that the 70 year old gasket that seals the oil pump is leaking badly. Not only is there no place open that would have a gasket, there is no place that would have this gasket period!

Don’t worry, you have a Glowforge.

Finding myself in this exact same predicament, I took a picture of the old gasket with a ruler next to it.

In Illustrator I scaled the image so that the ruler was measuring correctly, and then proceeded to draw the gasket. It was not much of a challenge since a little measuring showed that the original was all obvious fractions (i.e. the holes are 1-½”, ⅜” and 3/16”, etc.).



I just used a piece of chipboard to make the gasket. I smeared a bit of sealant on the paper but it is really a very low tech sort of thing that does not need to do more then keep the thick “way lube” oil from leaking out of the reservoir.

Perfect match!

Here it is on the pump just before installation.

This is going to be great for anyone who works on old cars or engines in general.

I sure could have used it years ago when I had to hammer out gaskets for my old Volvos.

If you are curious, this is what a 2500lb cast iron yak looks like once it is shaved.