Recreating ancient seals...

[infamoussmiley]

Sorry for the necropost, my notifications are all screwed up. About a decade ago, Air America bottle reg seats were getting scarce, so I set out to make enough to keep myself and a few friends supplied for the foreseeable future. I figured they were PCTFE given it's application and distinctive translucent appearance, and I was able to confirm off an old Air America patent drawing. It's a very common high performance seal material in and outside of paintball due to its superior physical and chemical properties compared to some of the more pedestrian engineering polymers like acetal, UHMW, PTFE, etc. Only downside is it's pricey.

The swiss lathe at my job at the time made all these in about a minute.



Lately, I've taken to laser cutting any flat seals I need, as It doesn't require any tooling to be made. Some ICD B2k/promaster cupseals & reg seats and some phantom cupseals. both 90D urethane.

Is there a way to make some of these to work on VM 68 seals?


Kind regards,

Smiley

[infamoussmiley]

Neat-o!

[devilzcall]

that sounds like polycarb then with some teflon like additive for friction.

igus has a pretty big selection of friction optimized plastics that they will sell as round stock, if you want to get closer than delrin, that might be a good start.

[Levi]

Still testing them, and I have a set off to Superman for even more testing, since at the moment I can't get a full 4500 PSI fill.

Hey Doc! How did those flatline seals work out? Can we buy any yet?

[DocsMachine]

Noice! Do you have those up for sale anywhere, or is it just a 'private stash'?

And no worries about necroposting- this is technically still an active thread. I have at least three semi-ongoing projects here that I'm trying to complete, as time and workload allows. Feel free to start hawking your wares, this is the perfect place for it.

What kind of laser is it? I know that my cheap Chinese K40 can't cut even thin urethane- it basically just melts a groove in it.

Doc.

[Araphel]

-That's actually one of the materials I was leaning towards, along with Rulon-J and one other I seem to have closed the tab on.

Thanks for the info! How'd you know that, out of curiosity?

Sorry for the necropost, my notifications are all screwed up. About a decade ago, Air America bottle reg seats were getting scarce, so I set out to make enough to keep myself and a few friends supplied for the foreseeable future. I figured they were PCTFE given it's application and distinctive translucent appearance, and I was able to confirm off an old Air America patent drawing. It's a very common high performance seal material in and outside of paintball due to its superior physical and chemical properties compared to some of the more pedestrian engineering polymers like acetal, UHMW, PTFE, etc. Only downside is it's pricey.

The swiss lathe at my job at the time made all these in about a minute.



Lately, I've taken to laser cutting any flat seals I need, as It doesn't require any tooling to be made. Some ICD B2k/promaster cupseals & reg seats and some phantom cupseals. both 90D urethane.

[Levi]

I just found a little treasure trove of Centerflag technical pdf's on the Wayback machine!

https://web.archive.org/web/20070203...h_support.html





There's more to be had at the link.

[imped4now]

Agreed. I probably have ~10 Centerflags alone, along with plenty of other awesome old mounted tank regulators.

[imped4now]

The Dynaflow is a Centerflag product, so that would make sense.

[DocsMachine]

Any chance somebody could send me either the piercing assembly itself, or a whole marker, for testing?
Doc.

[Chandlercv]

Anything else you ladies and gents can suggest?

Doc.

If it's not too late to join the party, my SA-17 could use puncture pin seals that last more than 3 cartridges.

I've had several goes at getting something to work, but my skills and my workshop have yet to yield success.

Here's the thread with the dimensions and some notes from some trials:

Battle Tested BT SA-17 o-ring sizes - mcarterbrown.com

[Levi]

Either way, if they can still be had from AGD, I'll focus my attentions elsewhere for the moment.

Doc.

Yup, no sense duplicating what's still available. My bad for missing them.

Regarding the Flatline... I aired mine up yesterday off a scuba that still had 2k in it. Worked ok until I adjusted the pressure, then wild swings all over the place. Ordered a bunch of stuff from AGD yesterday, including the 3K o ring kit. Have a new bottle arriving on Weds, and the local store and field both do 4500 fills. So I'm happy to volunteer as a test case if you are still looking for one.

Alternatively I'd be happy to test Dynaflow parts if needed. I wouldn't trust the old o rings in the kit I found, and it also doesn't appear to have the little reg seat that goes inside the piston.

[wthomas333]

I had previously measured a few old seals and averaged out the measurements to come up with these numbers.
I’m not certain what the original material is. The old manual states it is some sort of nylon. It’s definitely harder than 90D orings, but not quite as hard as delrin. But delrin washers seem to work fine in the Cobra and Nightmare valves.

OD .65 - .66
ID .34
Thickness .095

[DocsMachine]

Easy, those are disc seals much like a Nightmare. I'd either need measurements, or to borrow a Poison so I could measure it myself.
Doc.

[DocsMachine]

As I recall, there's three teflon O-rings in the trigger switch. It's been a while since I've been in mine, but I seem to recall they were the same size as the teflon 'rings from an Automag kit.
Doc.