People rarely think about gaskets, at least not until something is leaking.  Perhaps your engineers are struggling to put together a product capable of accomplishing its intended tasks, due to challenging environmental elements.  Perhaps you rely on older machinery, where finding replacement gaskets is difficult.  Perhaps you simply want to stock up on spares in bulk, to save money.

There are numerous ways that a custom gaskets manufacturer can be a valuable partner – and much more helpful than trying to buy gaskets off the shelf!

Why Custom Gaskets Are Better Than Off the Shelf Products

1. No compromises in product design

There are thousands of “stock” gaskets in the world, but the potential combinations of size and material are genuinely endless.  If you rely entirely on stock gaskets, that means your product has to be designed around the gaskets – and that means compromises.  On the other hand, a custom gasket can be created specifically for your needs.

2. Avoid costly replacement parts

Too many hardware manufacturers try to lock you into relying on them for spares, then overcharge for basic products.  You can avoid that with a custom gasket manufacturer.  It’s entirely possible to replicate any product on the market, usually for less than the OEM price, and often with better quality!

3. Replace irreplaceable parts

Another benefit of working with custom gasket manufacturers is the ability to obtain replacement gaskets when official parts simply are not available.  A lot of industrial and machine shops still rely on older hardware, whose original manufacturer is long out of business.  If a gasket fails, replacements may be impossible to find – but they can always be custom-made!

4. Create better products

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of materials and material blends that can be utilized in creating gaskets.  Cork, rubber, or silicone are fine – but they aren’t always the optimal solution to your use-case challenges.  A custom gasket manufacturer can utilize more exotic materials, like Durlon 9000, to help improve sealing and system longevity.

5. Stock up

Buying custom gaskets in bulk is cheap and easy, particularly compared to small-batch jobs.  If you foresee a need for replacement gaskets stretching ahead into the future, why not go ahead and order them now to keep long-term costs down?

Expert Gasket & Seal Can Help

Expert Gasket & Seal are your custom gasket experts!  Contact us to consult with our engineers.

Vital electrical and electronic equipment should be kept in a protective enclosure – particularly if operating in an outdoor environment.  However, the enclosure is only as protective as the gasket sealing it closed!  Even small flaws in either the seal or flange can compromise the gasket, causing serious problems to your operation.

Custom die cut gaskets can be an excellent and cost-effective option for keeping your electrical enclosures secure against threats both in both indoor and outdoor applications.  There are other potential options but die cut gaskets will give you the best performance.  More importantly, they’re much more likely to adhere to Ingress Prevention (IP) standards that your equipment may be required to meet!

Why Custom Die Cut Gaskets Are Best for Sealing Electrical Enclosures

Fundamentally, you have three options for gaskets on your electrical boxes – Strips, Foam-In-Place (FIP), and Custom die cut or Flashcut.

Strips are the worst choice, although they can occasionally be deployed as a “quick fix” until a more permanent solution can be obtained.  This simply means taking a length of sealing material, such as silicone, and cutting it into strips that are applied to the box’s door.  This may leave gaps in the protection and will cause leaks.

Foam-In-Place is another option.  FIP involves buying specialty liquid polyurethane and spraying it around the edges of the mating surfaces.  The liquid creates a foam, which cures into a harder seal.  If properly applied, it can create a relatively good seal.  However, it’s also fairly easy to damage, and the process is messy.   Special equipment will need to be purchased to accurately dispense the foam, necessitating additional cost.

Custom Die Cut or Flashcut Gaskets are the best permanent solution.  An experienced gasket manufacturer has a wide range of materials to choose from and can select the gasket material to best meet your needs and the operating conditions for the enclosure.  Die-cut /Flashcut gaskets are continuous, eliminating seams and other potential leak paths.  Plus, it’s easy to buy a handful of replacements at a low cost, so that you’ll have plenty of spares on hand for the years to come.

For Top Quality Gaskets, Call Expert Gasket & Seal

Companies across America trust us for custom die cut gaskets, as well as a variety of other custom plastic products and sealing solutions.  Contact us to consult with our experts!

When you order gaskets from a custom gasket manufacturer or any other source, they’re only going to perform as well as the installation job that puts them in place. Even the best-designed custom gasket will fail if it’s improperly installed – and a gasket failure can be very costly indeed. This is a situation where the installation simply needs to be done right the first time, every time.

So, here are some important tips on how to properly install a gasket – and what not to do, even if it seems tempting.

Three Must-Dos When Installing A Custom Gasket

1 – Always thoroughly clean the mating faces.

To get the best seal from your gasket, it should be applied to surfaces that are as clean as reasonably possible. Unless the mating faces are fresh off the assembly line, they should always get an appropriate cleaning to ensure a strong seal.

2 – Check flange condition

Flanges should be flat and parallel. Large nicks, deformations, and other major surface imperfections cannot be overcome by any gasket. Poor flanges should be either resurfaced or replaced.

3 – Tighten any bolts in a sequence.

For best fit, the bolts holding the gasket shouldn’t merely be each tightened in turn. Instead, work with opposite pairs – for example, top/bottom then left/right. Do at least three passes, tightening each bolt a bit more with each pass. This creates the best seal.

Three Gasket Installation Mistakes to Avoid

1 – Never reuse old gaskets.

An old gasket can never be relied on.  It’s already compromised and guaranteed to fail in an unpredictable fashion.  Remember, new gaskets are less costly than leaks.

2 – Never stack multiple gaskets together.

Never put two or more gaskets stacked together to try to correct poorly aligned flanges. Gaskets are not spacers, and overly thick gaskets are not the answer to correcting this problem. Contact your gasket specialist for help with this situation.

3 – Don’t over-tighten rubber gaskets.

Rubber gaskets that are over-tightened are more likely to fail, as this increases the pressure, they’re under.  This is one reason that you should tighten the bolts in sequence, as mentioned above, to avoid putting too much pressure on any part of the gasket.

Expert Gasket & Seal Makes Gaskets Easy

We are a custom gasket manufacturer with fast turnarounds and a long history of satisfied customers.  Contact us for a consultation.

If your products require gaskets to function properly, you want those gaskets to be as high-quality as possible.  Gaskets are generally inexpensive, as components go, but can significantly impact the overall lifespan of the products they go into.  Better gaskets make for better products, and that makes for better customer relationships.

How do you guarantee the best quality from your gaskets?  Buy custom.  Custom gaskets don’t cost much more than off-the-shelf components but offer so much more.

Five Big Benefits to Purchasing Custom Gaskets for Your Products

1. Guaranteed quality

One of the big hazards of ordering pre-made gaskets today is that there is often little way of knowing where they came from, or what sort of QC policies were in effect.  Unless you know the source of the gaskets, you can’t fully rely on them for your products – and you can’t know that unless you’re working directly with the company that makes them.

2. No compromises

Chances are, even if you can find an existing off-the-shelf gasket that works in your product, it won’t be optimal for your product.  Using pre-made gaskets almost always requires a level of compromise, sacrificing some level of usability or stability to make the gaskets work.  But when you order custom, those gaskets can be made precisely tailored to your needs.

3. Design consulting

Gasket manufacturers know their machines and their supply of materials intimately – and that means they can help you get the most from your designs!  Rather than compromising, it becomes possible to get gaskets that exceed expectations and allow for higher performance than initially planned for.  Expert gasket design consultants can significantly improve your product, and that boosts your entire business.

For example:

4. More choices in materials

Typically, off-the-shelf gaskets only come in a few stock materials such as rubber, cork, or silicone.  However, custom gasket manufacturers will have a huge range of materials available, including exotic materials with high temperature or pressure resistance.  Often, just changing materials can significantly improve performance when in use!

5. Get replacement parts easily

Don’t overlook the benefit of having spares on-hand, either for your products or for the machine used in your own processes.  Custom-made replacement parts are often of higher quality than OEM originals and can be cheaper as well.

Let Expert Custom & Seal Help

Expert Gasket & Seal has years of experience creating great outcomes for our customers and their products.  Contact us for a consultation!

When creating custom foam gaskets, or any other type of custom gasket, one of the single most important considerations is the material from which they’re made.  Even among foam gaskets, there are numerous types of elastomers that could be used – and they’re all going to have different properties when put into use.

Many of these are obvious, like “Can this material stand up to expected working temperatures?”  However, others are less obvious, particularly when it comes to longer-term usage.  Compression setand stress relaxation are two problems that can develop in gaskets being used, and they need to be considered carefully to ensure your products function reliably for your customers.

How Compression Setting and Stress Relaxation Affect Custom Foam Gaskets

I. Compression Setting

Compression set (or “C-Set” for short) refers to the tendency of foam gaskets to lose their elasticity when put under compression.  In general, no foam gasket will ever regain 100% of its original elasticity when compressed and then released, but it’s vital that the type of foam be chosen to minimize this effect.  C-Set can also be affected by operating temperatures, particularly high temperatures.

So, for example, silicone foams have good C-Set at room temperature, whereas a neoprene/EPDM blend performs poorly at the same temperature.  Your custom gasket manufacturer should be giving as much information as possible about the expected operational parameters of your custom gaskets, to ensure they pick appropriate materials.

II. Stress Relaxation

Stress relaxation refers to the tendency of foam gaskets to lose their ability to deflect additional forces while under a heavy compressive load – ie, how ‘springy’ they are.  In some cases, this isn’t an issue, but it can cause problems when these gaskets are used in applications where they’ll be under multiple simultaneous stresses.

Generally, stress relaxation is predictable with foam materials.  They will each lose a set amount of resilience during usage but won’t degrade further once they’ve hit their natural stress relaxation point.  So, again, a custom gasket manufacturer must choose the material carefully, to ensure that its natural level of stress relaxation won’t interfere with intended usage.

For Top-Quality Custom Foam Gaskets, Call in Expert Gasket & Seal

Our expert staff has extensive experience working with a huge range of gasket materials, and we love taking on new challenges! If you have a sealing problem that your engineers can’t overcome, contact us and we’ll find a solution that works.

One of the most important qualities you want in a custom gasket manufacturer is they have a comprehensive material selection and experience identifying the correct one for your application.  Custom rubber gaskets are used in many types of service and under many different operating conditions. The material from which they are made must be carefully chosen to match those conditions.

A good custom gasket manufacturer can help guide you through this process.  Here are just some of the many types of materials they might choose between.

Common Materials Seen in Custom Rubber Gaskets

Nitrile Rubber – Commonly used for petroleum based fluids, water, and air, Nitrile a good gasket material for a wide range of applications.  It can handle temperatures from -15°F to 250°F.

Viton® – This fluorocarbon-based brand name rubber has resistance to many chemicals and strong acids, making it a good choice for use in challenging operational environments. It will also hand temperatures to 450°F.

Ethylene Propylene (EPDM) – EPDM is another gasket material primarily known for its resistance to hot water, low temperature steam, glycols, and phosphate ester fluids.

Neoprene –  One of the most common rubber gasket materials used for cold water, some petroleum based fluids, and air applications.

PTFE (Teflon) – PTFE is inert and is widely used in a variety of chemical applications. It, and it’s proprietary filled PTFE material, Durlon 9000, is also made from FDA approved ingredients.

Silicone – Silicone has high temperature resistance, and is especially good in hot air applications to 500° F. Silicone is also available in a FDA approved version.

Polyurethane – Polyurethane has high resistance to abrasion and physical damage and should be considered for applications in abrasive environments.

Expert Gasket & Seal Are Your Choice for Excellent Custom Rubber Gaskets

We have access to a huge range of materials, and the know-how to utilize them properly.  Contact us for expert advice!

Whether you work in the hospitality industry or run a high-volume food manufacturing firm, creating bulk food items requires specialized equipment. That’s why many in the food and beverage industry rely on custom rubber gaskets designed to be safe and hygienic. There are a wide variety of food-grade gaskets on the market, which is why Expert Gasket & Seal has collected some facts to help you select the right one for your business.

Here are some tips for choosing the best custom rubber gaskets.

Design

Considering the design of your gaskets is important because you want to select one that will match your food processing system and function properly. There are many standard gasket designs available but for some of today’s newer, more innovative food processing machines, designing a custom rubber gasket may be necessary to ensure a perfect fit.

Materials

Since the gasket materials used in food contact applications need to be FDA compliant, they’re constructed with recognized and approved ingredients. The right materials will be non-toxic while also durable enough to keep up with your processing needs. Some of the most popular materials include FDA approved Nitrile rubber and several varieties of PTFE & Durlon filled PTFE gasket materials. Silicone rubber is another valuable material, especially for applications that requiring wide temperature ranges (-75 to + 450°F).

Manufacturer

When it comes to custom rubber gaskets for the food and beverage industry, it’s important to choose a manufacturing firm with a long history of making quality products. This will ensure that they live up to your expectations and also have the expertise to design and manufacture custom gaskets specifically for your food processing systems and applications.

Compliance

Remaining in compliance with Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards is essential. This is because not keeping your gaskets up to date with FDA standards could result in health hazards and contaminated food products. Such issues can easily put an end to your business or draw daily operations to a screeching halt. This means you should only invest in food-grade gaskets that have been thoroughly tested and certified. There are strict regulatory guidelines that custom rubber gasket manufacturers are required to follow, so be sure that the ones you select for your production system have passed all of the existing quality control measures necessary.

Contact us to learn more about food-grade custom rubber gaskets

It doesn’t matter if you operate a commercial kitchen or produce large scale food for international export, the right gaskets can make or break your business. For more info about food and beverage gaskets and other rubber products, call Expert Gasket & Seal today at (800) 956-8766 or fill out our online contact form.