How to seal a plastic tank lid. Why do rubber gaskets for moonshine still lose to silicone ones? How to make silicone seals with your own hands. How to seal a plastic tank or a barrel for water - the choice of an epoch
Gaskets for moonshine
When distilling the mash, all connecting seals of the moonshine device must be securely sealed. This is achieved with spacers. The lid of the distillation tank through the gasket is pressed against it very tightly. this is usually done with a rubber ring. But the material in it, when heated, gives bad smell. What to make another o-ring? It's a good idea to replace the rubber with silicone. You can fill the groove on the lid of the flask with liquid silicone paste, it will harden and form an elastic mass. But it is better to make a rubber ring from a six-millimeter metal rod and wrap it with fluoroplastic tape. A wire with a diameter of 6 mm is not difficult to find. It is not difficult to bend a ring out of it. First, the fluoroplastic tape is wound around the outer diameter of the rod, then on the rod itself. It turns out a seal with an internal metal frame. Fluoroplastic is used for this about 4 skeins.
About silicone
Silicone gaskets
Shops today sell special silicone parts for home brewing. For all devices and different sizes. If you are looking for a gasket to connect the coil and the wall, then it is also better to choose silicone. And for the distillation apparatus, this is the most best material. It is environmentally safe. You can immediately buy a set of gaskets for moonshine production at home.
All silicone gaskets are chemically inert and durable. The connection of the fitting and must also be tight. It is better to wind one turn of FUM tape on the thread before tightening. This will ensure tightness. And the gasket for connecting the lid to can be installed not one at once, but two, if they are thin. All distillery gaskets made from silicone are guaranteed to deliver. If the gasket for the lid of the distillation vessel is rubber, then this material hardens and cracks over time from heating. Tires don't last long. Immediately replacing rubber on silicone, you can remove the imminent future worries about finding the next gasket.
When assembling
It is not necessary to look for any gaskets for the construction of moonshine if the device is bought in a store. Everything you need is included in the kit. be careful not to damage the silicone by excessive tightening threaded connections. It is elastic and flattens under the action of metal. For moonshine improvised designs picking up the right diameter and thickness of a sealed ring or ring is easy. You can use both liquid silicone and commercially available seals made from it.
Now many Bulgarian canned food is sold in glass jars, corked with a metal lining that tightly presses the lid. Do not throw away or donate such jars and lids - they are more convenient for home canning than any other utensils. But before using them for this purpose, you will have to make a clip. Two wooden handles (preferably stronger) are connected with a metal strip (it can be iron, preferably brass or of stainless steel). The strips are attached to the handles with screws. The clamping device is clear from the figure (Fig. 1), its main dimensions are also given there.
So, you saved the jars and lids along with metal linings and rubber gaskets: all this was thoroughly washed and dried immediately after opening the store-bought canned food. Now you can cook your own. Fill the jar with vegetables and marinade, put in place the rubber gasket, lid and stroke. Put a clamp on the last one and carefully slide the handles so that the stroke tab enters its hole. Now bend it, and the vessel is securely sealed.
You can start pasteurization.
Banks are placed in a large pan, on the bottom of which lies a wooden or metal grate. The saucepan is filled with warm (50-60 °) water so that the necks of the jars protrude from it. The water continues to heat up. 20 minutes after it boils, the canned food is ready, they just need to be cooled. They do not need any additional sealing. During boiling, part of the air from the jar came out. Now, when the products have cooled, they will decrease in volume: a certain vacuum will form in the vessel, attracting the lid to the jar.
In order for both lids and jars to serve for several seasons each, two rules must be observed: lubricate the lids of freshly prepared canned food with grease - against rust, and when uncorking, try not to damage either the tongue or the stroke.
2. FILM INSTEAD OF LID
Canned food jars can be sealed with plastic wrap instead of lids. The jars are filled with a hot pasteurized mass, a piece of film is dipped in vodka or alcohol (sterilized), tightly applied to the neck, the ends are bent down, and tied by wrapping a thin twine several times around the jar. When canned food is pasteurized in a water bath, they are temporarily closed with lids that have already been used, then the lids are removed, boiling syrup or just boiling water is added to the jars as quickly as possible and sealed with a film, as mentioned above. When cooling, the film should slightly bend inward.
3. WAX COVER
Chilled canned food in a jar can be poured on top of about a two-centimeter layer of melted wax. Having hardened, it will hermetically close the jar, and in such a way that it will not even contain air gap, which inevitably remains with other methods of capping and adversely affects the safety of the product. From above, the jar is also covered with paper or any lid - so that dust does not fly inside.
4. COVERS - THE SAME AS THERE WERE
Don't throw away plastic-lined soft drink bottle caps - they'll come in handy for sealing canned juices. To use them, you will need some skill and a short metal tube of a suitable diameter with thick walls, at one end of which an internal chamfer is made around the entire circumference. And covers and gaskets must be thoroughly washed, boiled. But then another lid was taken out of a pot of boiling water, put on the neck of a bottle that had been sterilized and filled with juice, and a tube was placed on top, or rather, its end with a chamfer. Now gently tap on the other end with a hammer - and the walls of the tube will firmly press the teeth of the lid to the glass around the entire circumference. If air bubbles are visible when turning the bottle upside down, use the tube and hammer again. Did not help? Change the lid to another one.
5. CLUG WITH THE NIPPLE
Canned food with this method is first pasteurized until half cooked in bottles with uncorked lids, and the nipples are washed in water with the addition of soda and kept in boiling water for five minutes. Then they get down to business together, - one with a towel alternately holds on the table in vertical position hot bottles, another puts nipples on them. Now the pasteurization can be finished. At the same time, the nipples will swell slightly, and then, when cooled, their ends, on the contrary, will be drawn into the bottles. Reliability and comparative simplicity of capping are not the only advantages of this method. The same nipples can be used for several years in a row. In addition, it is always easy to find out if the bottle has started to ferment and if the contents should be pasteurized again. The beginning of fermentation is signaled by the extension of the tip of the nipple from the neck. (Fig. 2)
6. UNIVERSAL PLUGS
It is convenient to cork large glass bottles with pickles, marinades and mashed potatoes with homemade corks made from linden, aspen or other softwoods. So that they fit into necks of different diameters, give them a conical shape. The height of the tongue is 5 cm. Ready corks must be boiled. When corking, mugs of parchment are placed under them. Corks are hammered into bottles with light blows wooden hammer. Then they are poured with tar to plug possible cracks on the tongues that are inconspicuous to the eye.
7. CORK - IN TAR
The necks of bottles with canned food, corked with cork, rubber or wooden corks, must be filled with tar (see the note “Canned food in milk bottles”). This operation is simple: wiped dry necks are dipped into a tin can with molten resin so that the neck goes into it by 1-2 cm. Remember - resin does not stick to a wet surface.
8 SALT CORK
A hot tomato can be corked... with salt. Two layers of ironed gauze are placed on the neck of the bottle, slightly pressed inward, tied with a thread. Salt is poured into the formed cavity. It will absorb the steam rising from the tomato, dampen, and then harden into a dense hermetic crust. When necessary, it is easy to remove it by moistening with water and pulling up on the gauze.
9. CANNED MILK BOTTLES
Canned food in milk bottles can also be corked using paper and tin circles with a diameter of 32-33 mm, which are cut with scissors from old cans or bad covers. After sterilization, a scalded circle of parchment or drawing paper is placed on the inner side of the neck, a tin circle (also scalded) is placed on it and poured over the edges with molten sealing wax, paraffin or tar. The tar is heated in tin can with a handle and a spout through which it is poured.
10. BRIEFS
10-1. Attach a piece of thin rubber tightly to the neck, tie it tight - and you get a hermetic closure without any cork. It should be done immediately after the sterilization of canned food in bottles.
10-2. Before tying the neck of the jar with twine or thin twine, wet them. After drying, the tie will become even tighter. This advice is applicable when sealing canned food with foil, and when jam jars are covered with paper.
10-3. Cover replacement piece polyethylene film can not be tied to the neck glass jar, and put on it an elastic ring cut off from an unusable bicycle chamber.
Buckets, basins, barrels and other household equipment are made of plastic. This material is practical, easy to use, but short-lived.
Any drop or mechanical impact can lead to cracks. A container that passes water becomes useless. But seal plastic water container it is quite possible that she will serve well for some time.
It is quite possible to seal a plastic barrel at home. Consider two options for how to eliminate gaps in plastic barrels and other containers.
Option 1
To work, you will need the following materials and tools:
- stainless mesh (you can take aluminum, copper),
- scissors,
- soldering iron 100 watts.
Operating procedure:
- Cut off a piece of mesh with scissors.
- We fix the mesh at the site of damage to the depth of the mesh thickness.
- We align it along the seam, moving along the entire plane. At the same time, we solder the mesh with a soldering iron in parallel, hold the free edge with a knife, immediately after soldering we cool it with a heat exchanger (knife) - this important rule so that the mesh does not bulge.
- We introduce the entire mesh into the seam using this method.
- At the end of the work, the seam is completely sealed and reinforced, which gives it a fortress.
- We repeat the procedure with reverse side containers.
VIDEO INSTRUCTION
Option 2
If you have to repair a container with water under pressure, you can resort to another method.
For work you will need:
- flexible plastic patch
- building hair dryer,
- protective gloves.
Operating procedure:
- We wipe the area with damage, remove dirt.
- We begin to heat with a hairdryer at low power so as not to burn a hole, a place with a defect.
- We heat the patch with a hair dryer from the side that will be adjacent to the crack. We heat already at a higher power.
- We apply a patch to the place of damage and continue to warm up with a hair dryer, adding more power. Wear protective gloves on your hands to avoid burns. It is important not to overheat the surface.
- We smooth the patch with our fingers and wait for it to cool. We pour water and check the quality of work.
Final sealing and smoothing of irregularities on a repaired plastic tank The first method proved to be the most effective in practice. The second is more suitable as a temporary measure.
How to seal a plastic tank or a barrel for water - the choice of an epoch
If the defect in the plastic container is small, you can use epoxy glue. A two-component epoxy adhesive will effectively solve the problem of a leaky plastic tank.
Highly resistant to moisture and chemicals, polymerizes in just 1 hour, non-flammable.
Need to cut off right amount glue, knead with clean hands until a homogeneous mass is obtained, fashion a cone out of it and insert it into the opening of the tank. Hold securely for a few minutes.
Then you need to wait 2 hours, after which the container can be operated.
Features of epoxy adhesive "Contact":
- restores the shape of products, and also hermetically fills voids,
- is not afraid of not only water, but also oils, solvents,
- the repaired tank can be used at temperatures from -40C to +150C,
- within 3-5 minutes, the adhesive can be corrected, and after an hour it can be cleaned, turned and subjected to other mechanical influences,
- The adhesive is sold ready to use.
The cost of this composition is from 150 rubles per pack of 50 g.
Also have similar properties adhesives "General Purpos Permapoxy PERMATEX"(from 314 rubles for 25 ml) and "Plastic Weld Permapoxy PERMATEX" (from 320 rubles for 25 ml).
Buy epoxy adhesives can be found at most hardware stores and online.
