building your own (copper) gaskets

ok so i might be getting a international d-2 from the late thirties here soon and along with being really cool its also an international which means parts are kinda hard to find and outrageously priced. so most likely im going to build as many parts as i can myself. Now i grew up building gaskets while helping my dad (we were always working on stuff you couldn't get parts for like outdated farm machinery) so im pretty comfortable building gaskets out of cork rubber for small stuff like water pumps, oil pumps, etc, now copper gaskets is one area i haven't messed around much. And yes ive read the pages of stuff on how copper gaskets don't seal water very well, but what if a head gasket for your application isn't available any more and the only option is to build it yourself or pay for a custom gasket. So i guess my question is has anybody built there own copper head gaskets and how did you do it? Also any tips on sealing copper gaskets would be welcome to.

 

Sometimes, just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. Stu

 

and, sometimes, "just because I want to" is all the reason needed.

 

I would look into water jetting.

 

to seal copper gaskets they are first made from annelled copper sheet. The surface's that they are to seal are coated with something sticky ( useually a copper containing adheseve) & put together semi wet. Of course its important that the surfaces are flat & not warped. Copper gaskets can be used over if properly installed & have been used for decades in racing.

 

from what i read there are few people who swear by solid copper and the rest say they **** for non race apps. might have to do some experimenting on an extra motor.

 

Copper is soft so cut them any way that leaves them flat. Knockout punches for medium holes, a hole punch or step drill for the tiny holes, and maybe a jig saw for the cylinders. Use good technique, like maybe screwing the copper sheet to a piece of wood to back it up as you work on it.

Anneal the copper gaskets after tooling is complete.

Then install with copper-spray-a-gasket on both sides. You will be good to go with no leaks.

 

Do you anneal copper with the same flame you would use for aluminum?

 

the way i was thinking of doing it was to drill all the round holes i could. maybe use very sharp chisels and punches for the irregular stuff, probably saw the cylinders, then deburr every thing at the end then anneal. i might have to just try it out.

 

What I've done in the past.

Make the template of the gasket on a thin piece of wood, clamp 2 pieces of wood together with the copper in between, keep the template on top. Cut out the holes, drills, holesaws and bandsaw is what I used. Remove the wood and you're left with a decent gasket with almost no burrs. If you worked nice you can use the top piece of wood as a template for the next gasket.

I've also soon someone make a template out of a 16ga or so piece of steel using a watercutter and use that as a cutting template for his gaskets (he needed about 12) he then used a hobby knife to cut the gasket materials.