‘What is a gasket?’ is not the easiest of questions to answer. The reason for this is that people can mean many different things when they talk about a ‘gasket’; and gaskets can be used to perform many different functions. On a very general level a gasket might be defined as a flexible component that sits in-between two other surfaces. In this article we’ll take a brief look at some of the problems in answering the question ‘What is a gasket?’ Hopefully, by the end of it, this will give you a better idea of what a gasket is and how they work

The Problem of Defining a Gasket

Gaskets are commonly made of a flexible material such as rubber, paper, or cork. In fact, there are many different materials that gaskets can be made out of (we stock some 1,200 different grades), and so gaskets cannot simply be defined by means of the material that they are made out of. Gasket materials are, however, typically flexible, as they are usually compressed between two other surfaces. (Having said this, it is also possible to find gaskets made of metal: such as spiral wound, or copper head gaskets).