by Ken McClenahan » Tue Feb 21, 2006 9:57 pm
I measured all of my stock of old unused asbestos composition gaskets and they all were about 0.018" thick plus or minus a little. This includes gaskets by K&B, Johnson, and McCoy. The Perfect gasket material also measured the same. The gaskets seem to compress down to about 0.010" when used based on measurements of used gaskets.
The asbestos cpmposition gaskets include some kind of adhesive because they stick to almost any material when pressure is applied.
I downloaded a copy of the now obsolete industry standard for asbstos composition gaskets (MIL A 7021C) but don't how relate it to any modern material covered by ASTM F104.
The real questions are: what is a suitable modern equivalent, what thickness should be used for an equivalent compressed thickness, and where can we obtain the material in the small quantities we need?