The Diary of the Building of a 5" gauge Stirling Single
Making the gaskets or how I made them
7th November 2017 On the 12th June 2017 I ordered some Live steam gasket material 1/64" (0.4mm) as an 8" x 8" sheet at a very reasonable cost of £3.30 from the supplier EKP Supplies and  today made up some of the gaskets. I tried unsuccessfully to cut holes in the material but never had them in quite the right places. So I decided to use the Steam chest lid as the template for the gasket set of two for each Steam Chest using the respective cover for each side and drilling through the holes as a guide into a piece of wood. First the outer diameter of the cover was marked onto the gasket The cover was securely held to the wood with the gasket in between by a machine clamp.
Then the hole was cut out for the centre and the outside trimmed. The photo shows the rear cover, the virgin gasket and the piece of balsa, which was drill making another gasket.
Now the holes are drill using the read cover as a guide to location.
8th November 2017 A gasket for one of the cylinders rear end was made using the principles outlined and can be seen laying on the balsa wood so that the projecting flange had somewhere to sit and thus the gasket material was still held tightly between the cylinder rear cover and the timber base as seen above.
13th November 2017 Final gasket for the cylinders made using the process outlined above.