POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?

Needed some flat round gaskets for one of my compressor rebuilds for the valve assembly's, and after striking out finding them on line except for in a kit for that specific compressor for $78 I decided to take a shot at making them. Bought an $8 set of spring steel cutters and used one to cut the outside diameter which was right on and then a smaller one for the i.d.. That one was too small, so ended up using a cheap mini belt sander I had picked up on sale at HF a while back. Clamped it in the vise, and finessed the i.d. to the proper size. A bit of fussy work, and you have to watch the fingers, but it got the job done, and some times the little victories are the best. Mike

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I’ve not seen cutters like that — are they sold specifically for gasket cutting or…?
 
woodchucker said:
was the 18 degrees to avoid the shaft of the knob?
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Yes, otherwise the boring bar will hit the shaft. When I make the 2 for the Jeep, I will turn the shaft smaller, likely the size that I will bore the hole to tap for the gear shifter.
Martin
 
Few months ago i've seen couple of videos on vapor polishing and polymerization on headlights. Almost all my car have plastic headlights and polishing, clear coating them is a real pain when having more than 20 vehicles. The process i mentioned earlier seems to be very easy and also should last for years. I started asking around no one even heard of it. So i opened aliexpress and looked at kits for polymerization, many of the sellers did not want to ship to my country but i managed to find one that sent me the heated cup and others that sent the fluid, i had an 12v adapter with that i completed the set. I took a very damaged headlight from one of the octavia's sand it with p600 then with p800 and gave it a pass with this vapor process, it magically turned clear. I'll leave this headlight out side to see how long it will last, but for easy use its very easy and much clearer then some of the polishing processes.
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GoceKU said:
Few months ago i've seen couple of videos on vapor polishing and polymerization on headlights. Almost all my car have plastic headlights and polishing, clear coating them is a real pain when having more than 20 vehicles. The process i mentioned earlier seems to be very easy and also should last for years. I started asking around no one even heard of it. So i opened aliexpress and looked at kits for polymerization, many of the sellers did not want to ship to my country but i managed to find one that sent me the heated cup and others that sent the fluid, i had an 12v adapter with that i completed the set. I took a very damaged headlight from one of the octavia's sand it with p600 then with p800 and gave it a pass with this vapor process, it magically turned clear. I'll leave this headlight out side to see how long it will last, but for easy use its very easy and much clearer then some of the polishing processes.
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Impressive. I have done it the old fashion way… wet sanding up to 3,000 grit then using plastic polish compound. Last step is coating so the work last… or using a clear film resistant to UV…. But that is a lot of work.
 
wachuko said:
Impressive. I have done it the old fashion way… wet sanding up to 3,000 grit then using plastic polish compound. Last step is coating so the work last… or using a clear film resistant to UV…. But that is a lot of work.
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A buddy has a body shop. He just sands them down with 400Gr, and does an automotive clear coat over them. The automotive clear floods the sanding scratches and also has UV blockers. I think you can get automotive clear in a rattle can to do this 'in car' with some masking at home. Doing one sanding with 400 has got to be way faster than going to 3000!
 
my neighbour back home in Texas showed me his kit (same pieces as Goce) and the results were pretty amazing. I did the headlights on the Fungus the old way and they came out pretty good, but the kit is way less work and probably better results. There was some deep crazing in the ones I did, not sure how well the polymerisation kit would deal with though, but either way would be so much better than the originals.
 
I just gotta know, what is the vapor solvent, and what are the polymer chemicals identified as?
 
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