Felt Gaskets and Seals

Felt has a dense fibrous structure that provides useful compressibility whilst allowing the material to absorb and retain oils and lubricants.

These characteristics make felt particularly suitable for applications where a gasket or seal needs to exclude contaminants, hold lubricant, cushion components or provide a wiping action rather than contain high fluid pressures.

Yes. Dust exclusion is one of the traditional applications for engineering felt seals.

When compressed around a shaft, opening or adjoining surface, felt can help prevent dust, dirt and other particulate contaminants from entering machinery or mechanical assemblies.

Yes. Felt can absorb and retain oils within its fibrous structure, allowing it to act as a lubricant reservoir in suitable applications.

This makes felt particularly useful for bearing seals, shaft seals, oiling pads and other components where a controlled supply of lubricant is beneficial.

Yes. Felt has traditionally been used around rotating shafts and bearings to help retain lubricant whilst excluding dust and dirt.

The suitability of felt depends upon factors such as shaft speed, pressure, temperature, lubricant and component design, so demanding applications should be assessed individually.

Felt is generally better suited to light-duty sealing, dust exclusion and lubricant retention than to containing liquids or gases at high pressure.

Where a pressure-tight fluid or gas seal is required, an elastomeric rubber, compressed fibre or specialist gasket material may be more appropriate.

Yes. The fibrous and compressible structure of felt gives it useful vibration and sound-damping characteristics.

Felt components can therefore be used between adjoining parts to reduce rattling, vibration transmission and direct surface contact.

Yes. Felt is frequently used as a cushioning or protective material because it can prevent harder components from rubbing directly against one another.

This can make felt useful in assemblies where protection against abrasion, impact or marking is required alongside light sealing or spacing.

The operating temperature of a felt gasket or seal depends on the type of fibre, density, manufacturing process, lubricant and operating conditions.

Because wool, synthetic and specialist engineering felts can have different temperature capabilities, the intended application should be reviewed before specifying material for sustained elevated-temperature use.

Felt is a fibrous material particularly suited to dust exclusion, lubricant retention, wiping, cushioning and vibration damping. Foam materials contain a cellular structure and are generally more suited to applications requiring greater compression and recovery for environmental sealing.

The most suitable material depends upon whether the primary requirement is dust protection, lubricant retention, cushioning or compression sealing.

Yes. Bluemay Weston manufactures bespoke felt gaskets and seals to customer drawings, dimensions, samples and specifications.

Components can be produced in simple circular and rectangular formats as well as complex profiles incorporating apertures, fixing holes, slots and other features.

Bluemay Weston manufactures felt gaskets and seals from sheet material using precision punching and water jet cutting techniques.

Punching provides an efficient manufacturing method for repeat production quantities, whilst water jet cutting is particularly useful for prototypes, lower-volume requirements, larger components and intricate profiles where dedicated tooling may not be appropriate.

Bluemay Weston can manufacture felt gaskets and seals in quantities ranging from prototypes and small development batches through to high-volume production runs of many thousands or millions of components, depending on the component design, material specification and customer requirements.