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Gasket Ideas.... FWIW

stike
stike Posts: 15,597
edited November -0001 in EggHead Forum
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BGE_gasket.jpg

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BGE_O-ring_gasket.jpg

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ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • Little Steven
    Little Steven Posts: 28,817
    stike,

    Man I wish I could illustrate like that. The Viking/Primo uses a formed stainless face (which in their case is part of the dome cover. They use what looks like a Rutland or stove gasket on the base. Without encasing the whole dome in SS you could use a formed channel of stainless around the dome mating face.
    Personally, I don't see the need to worry about the seal there as much as some seem to but this idea would reduce the tendency of whatever gasket you used to burn.

    Steve

    Steve 

    Caledon, ON

     

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  • Davekatz
    Davekatz Posts: 763
    Great idea! You could probably do it with one o-ring routed into the top so that if there was a cracking issue the replacement cost wouldn't be as great.

    Let's hope BGE is listening to you.

    Thanks,

    Dave
    Food & Fire - The carnivorous ramblings of a gluten-free grill geek.
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  • Weekend Warrior
    Weekend Warrior Posts: 1,702
    I like where this thread is going. Hopefully BGE is paying attention.

    PS. I like your pictures too stike :laugh: :P
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  • fishlessman
    fishlessman Posts: 34,594
    my oring charts show silicon only at 450, but submerged in the groove thats probably fine, they can be made anysize you want. i cant see the grinding flat too expensive, they have metal blanchard grinders that could be set ip to do the job quickly and older machines are everywhere
    fukahwee maine

    you can lead a fish to water but you can not make him drink it
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    that website i linked to (basically, the first one that google returned) showed silicone gaskets rated to 600 degrees. the ceramic never gets to 600, it would just be the thin edge that's exposed to the fire.

    i think routing would be the easiest thing, even though grinding dead-flat is possible. for one thing, the router would be easy to center in the edge no matter how much the castings varied out-of-round, and the ceramic is very soft, easy to cut and tool. i pierced my small egg's firebox with a bunch of extra holes, and i ground out the lower vent another 30% wider or so (both in an effort to increase air flow). the stuff cuts like butta (i wonder if i just scrooed the pooch, warranty-wise on my small? hahaha).

    i think you could plunge a router and sweep it around with standard tools (dunno if any finishing is done in mexico, or just the casting). even that undercut groove could probably be plunged at the back (it would make a round hole), and then swept around the rim and brought out the same small hole, which'd be covered by the gasket.
    anyway.

    just thinking out loud. avoiding doing my tax prep.
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • Fidel
    Fidel Posts: 10,172
    I would think you want the silicone only on the bottom so it is exposed to less heat. With the dome raised in a high heat cook or during lighting with open flame the exposure may limit the life of the o-ring more so than if it were installed in the base.
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  • Fidel
    Fidel Posts: 10,172
    why couldn't they just change the casting mold to accept a new gasket like this.

    retro-fit would be one problem to overcome, but new production could easily incorporate this.
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    they could if the groove wasn't undercut. the first idea i had was the dovtail-looking groove, which couldn't really be cast. the other one could be. i even chamfered the edges on that sketch. hahaha

    stikey's brane can't stop when it meets a design challenge
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    thanks for the props.
    -J
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • jeffinsgf
    jeffinsgf Posts: 1,259
    Ya'll are guilty of the same thing that gets the designers at my company in trouble from time to time. Just because you "can" do something, doesn't mean you "should" do it. When you start machining ceramic and replacing a few pennies worth of felt with a 3 or 4 dollar o-ring or a 5 or 6 dollar custom molded silicone seal, you've just driven the price up for little or no reason at all. In a price sensitive market, that seems ill-advised to me.

    The seal does not need to be air tight to control a fire or even extinguish one, for that matter. If you make the lid to base seal with an o-ring, I suppose next you'll want to do the same to the rain cap?

    I think all that needs to happen is that the gasket installers at the Mothership need to have a new training session and learn not to stretch.
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    i think someone mentioned the primo/viking using a woven gasket. would be funny to confirm if it really was rutland. i have a rutland on my egg, but as we know, rutland says it's a no-no. would be a little schadenfreude to see viking have to recall all those if the rutland wasn't kosher.

    it might be a ceramic fiber gasket, but it's the same issue. friable fibers in the food....
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • Jeffro
    Jeffro Posts: 9
    If you had a 1/4" groove centered on both the dome and the base, you could probably use the hi-temp rope gasket that is used on woodburning stoves.
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  • Little Steven
    Little Steven Posts: 28,817
    stike,

    At 7K a pop, I can't imagine they would have to recall that many. I was talking more about the idea of using a flat, wide surface on one side which would reduce the exposure of the gasket to heat. Plus, it would be a retrofittable thing.
    As much as I love my eggs, I don't want to buy any more. :)

    Steve

    Steve 

    Caledon, ON

     

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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    i hearya.

    BGE already enjoys a premium place at the top of the ceramic food chain. and a five dollar gasket (especially if they can make it proprietary) might help to position themselves as the 'premium' version.

    mercedes makes sure their doors maintain a tolerance that the ford focus does not. neither buyer is disappointed in the lack of the tolerance, or conversely complaining about the price increase.

    also. it might certianly cost more than a felt gasket... but the number of newbie "i just fried my frigging gasket again!" posts has an unquantifiable negative value. make that go away, and it's logical that buyers who might have been scared off would not be.

    i have always enjoyed one aspect of my design ability. i have never gone over budget. i have had small budgets, and massive ones, and people that could afford way more than others, and people that couldn't afford much... but there is a design solution for every budget.

    i'm just throwing out a "whattaya think".

    a designer isn't a good designer if he can't hit the budget.
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • Fidel
    Fidel Posts: 10,172
    My mind more settled into the channel cut and o-ring solution simply because it would provide an easier end-user replacement opportunity.
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    that's also a rutland pruduct, though. BGE is officially in the 'no' camp on that (along with rutland corporate)
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    zackly

    you and i are just the type of sh!tfers that would get a router and try it, too.

    i just might, except my large has the rutland, and that's in no danger of coming off any time soon. maybe the small, which i have already frankensteined.
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • Fidel
    Fidel Posts: 10,172
    The dangerous thing is that I already have the router......i need to discourage myself by checking the replacement cost for a medium base.
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  • Clay Q
    Clay Q Posts: 4,486
    All good ideas stike! Man, this subject is a hot topic and it gets the brain juices flowing... :laugh: BGE could first start with machining the faces flush and true so no high or low spots. The dovetail groove or any groove would be a tricky operation....if at all, feasible. To start, the lip integrity is compromised, then there is the tooling cost/maintenance. Ceramics are murder on tool bits and that's why most details are relegated to casting technology. Grill dome has a groove but it's in a thicker wall, don't know how their groove is made though.
    Now taking your silicone idea, how about the silicone gasket being a formed product so it fits over the lower base rim with two sides like this.... [ (turn it down, he he)

    If I only had an interactive pen display. :pinch:
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    hahahahaha

    carbide tip, my friend.

    you'll be fine.

    :whistle:
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    yeah. as fidel mentioned, casting the detail in is the way to go, hence the second sketch.

    i think i'd heard that grinding flush (both top and bottom) is a little prohibitive. the felt gasket (being both on top and bottom rims) makes up for probably 99% of the casting variation. i think any gasket needs to be thick enough for the reason you mentioned.
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • Fidel
    Fidel Posts: 10,172
    OK, now my juices are flowing.

    The permatex and other brand name silicone gaskets sealants are actually marketed as gasket replacements - you squeeze it on and mash the parts together and the silicone dries into a gasket.

    What if (and I am saying if because this is less permanent than completely defacing my medium with a router) you could somehow make a form template that would create a 1/* thick lip all around the base. You fill that with the hi-temp RTV gasket maker and allow it to cure then remove the mold.

    Essentially replacing the woven gasket material with a ring of high temp silicone.

    Jeff, if you understand what I am trying to say a q&d illustration might help others get it.
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  • jeffinsgf
    jeffinsgf Posts: 1,259
    I don't think so. It would have to be diamond to have any tool longevity at all.
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    it's been done.

    a dude here schmeared a wide blop of permatex (or other) all the way around on the bottom rim. piece of plastic wrap on top as a bond-break, and shut the dome.

    when cured, he peeled off the plastic wrap and trimmed any overage.

    et voila!
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    http://www.greeneggers.net/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=55&func=view&catid=1&id=72583
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    rutland has been poo-pooed cuzza the fiber issue. we have (I have, i mean) figured that also meant the coltronics (ceramic) gasket is also verboten (forgive the german, i think the mercedes reference brought it out. plus, i'm at the last stage of Call of Duty 5 , kaempfen im Reichstag... but i digress again).

    here is a well-know and beloved ( :kiss: ) BGE corporate gent talking about his use of the coltronics gasket.

    http://www.greeneggers.net/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&func=view&id=102134&catid=1

    BEFORE YOU JUMP ON HIM or take it as "officially approved", it may be that it was a short-lived experiment. i don't mean to drag bobby-Q into it. just found it interesting that at the time, it looked like coltronics ceramic gaskets were being considered.
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • Fidel
    Fidel Posts: 10,172
    OK, so I'm an unoriginal unimaginative hack.

    Fine. I get it.
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    no. but you ARE given to taking things the wrong way. ;)

    i had forgotten about it until you mentioned it. just spent some time trying to find the photo. i think it was ranger ray or ray that did it first. then chef arnoldi tried it. i found a veritable pantload of threads when i searched for it. it seems to me that's the simplest best gasket idea. and yet it keeps falling off the table.

    do not know why. you'd think a concept like that'd stick in our collective brain case.
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    i'm talking about him (or me) doing it, one time. carbide'd be fine. you are right that it wouldn't work for doing a thousand.

    i punched a number of holes in my firebox, and widened the lower vent, all with a simple carbide drill, half inch or so diameter. by the end it was semi-spent. but as a one-time thing, it was fine. it's still in my toolbox, and it still drills.

    you may have met many designers that overshoot and don't know the perfect solution right out of the gate, but i have also sat in meetings where every time a designer offered an idea, there was someone there to explain why it wouldn't work. and the funny thing was that guy never offered anything that WOULD work. was just there to shoot things down.
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
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  • Clay Q
    Clay Q Posts: 4,486
    Using a masonry disc I ground both lip edges of my older egg and it made a BIG difference in the seal as I had a high spot at back of the dome lip and smaller dips/highs overall. With a flush fit less problems with burning gaskets and band adjustments.
    In fact, a gasket could be used on the base only if the fit was true and flush. One less gasket to worry about. A thicker gasket takes up discrepancies in the lip edges so what type of gasket is best? BGE now has nomex and it looks like a good product. I like the idea of high temp silicone adhesive, you've got that already.
    Grinding the lip edge flush is not rocket science and the machining tools/grinders are available. Heck, I could come up with a jig for grinding in mass production down there in Mexico. The opperation would take two laborers about two minutes per egg using a portable belt sander/grinder. It's just a matter of fine tuning the lip edge after the ceramic has been fired. Anyway, I think it's a first step to a better seal. Then nomex with silicone adhesive.
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