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TIL to always measure the old gasket before ordering a new one | Boilermakers - Rigidtalk

TIL to always measure the old gasket before ordering a new one

Blew a hand hole gasket on a 300 HP Cleaver-Brooks at a food plant in Emporia two Saturdays back. I pulled the old one, eyeballed it against the spare on the truck, figured close enough, and fired the boiler back up. Forty minutes later it was weeping steam across the tube sheet, so I shut it down and lost the whole afternoon. Measured the old ring with a caliper after that and it was 3/16 inch off from the spare I had grabbed in a hurry. Now I write the size on the door with a paint marker before I even crack the bolts. Anybody got a better way to keep gasket sizes straight across a few different boilers?

2 comments

2 Comments

webb.victor2h ago

Writing the size on the door with a paint marker only works if the last guy did it and the paint held up. Half the time the door gets swapped, wire wheeled, or some kid with a rag wipes it right off. A 3/16 inch miss on a hand hole ring is nothing, that's a normal eyeball error, and honestly the spare you grabbed might have been the right call if the flange was pitted anyway. You lost an afternoon, but you didn't lose the boiler, and that caliper on a hot flange in a food plant at 2am is its own kind of problem. What makes you so sure that old gasket was even the right size to begin with?

mila_reed2h ago

@webb.victor the paint marker thing wasn't my point, the measuring was. And saying 3/16 off is "nothing" is just not true on a hand hole ring, that gap is exactly where the steam finds its way out once things heat up, which is what happened to me. You also asked how I know the old gasket was right, and that is the whole reason to measure it before you pull it, because it was sealing fine until it blew, so it was the right size by default. Sure, a pitted flange can cause a leak no matter what ring you drop in, but guessing when you have a caliper in the truck is how you burn a Saturday. The door gets swapped or wiped, fine, but that's why you write the size on the gasket itself or snap a pic on your phone before it hits the trash. A number on your phone doesn't come off with a rag.