Darned O-rings

[bitteral]

I'm getting ready to try an all-grainer one of these days, but I have been having some trouble creating an MLT with a water-tight seal:

All those instructions for converting a cooler to an MLT seem to use an O-ring. After many attempts, with different configurations and O-ring sizes, I just could not get a water-tight seal. So finally, I just tried it without an O-ring, really tightened the connections down pretty hard, and wa-la, it looks like I finally do have a water-tight seal. I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced this, and if there are any drawbacks to this.

I'm using a rectangular cooler. It did not have a spigot, so I drilled a 5/8" hole for the spigot. (I think that may be where my problem started---a smaller hole, like 1/2" may have been better.) I'm using a 3/8" brass nipple through the hole. The combination that finally worked for me was this simple: in the inside of the cooler, I simply have a female brass fitting tightened directly agains a 5/8" SS washer, which is directly agains the side of the cooler. No O-ring!

Sorry I don't have a photo. I guess I need a public location to put the photo, or need to upgrade my membership here?

 

[woosterhoot]

I used a nipple with a npt lock nut on either side tighten with a thin layer of gorrilla glue on the inside. No leaks and it doesn't move at all when i close the ball valve. Before when i closed the ball valve it would spin so i added the glue to bond it to the cooler. Also in general it's probably better to size the fit tight rather than loose. If you have a 5/8" hole see if you can fit a 1/2" nipple through it. My cooler had a heavy 5/8" to start with and I fit a 1/2" nipple in it.

 

[mr x]

As far as I am concerned, O-rings are garbage for these applications. This is what you want:

GORE-TEX GR® Sheet Gasketing
http://www.sealsolutions.com/wlgore.html

If you need some and can't find any cheap local, I can send you some.

 

[WOP31]

If you are really torqueing on the o-ring it will make it leak, this goes for just about any aplication with an o-ring set-up in that fashion. When you overly tighten an o-ring it streches and becomes oblong and contorts all out of shape then starts leaking, my sugestion would be to hand tighten it hten see if it leaks. I have a cooler mash tun and it has and o-ring and doesn't leak, but i on'y hand tightend it.

Cheers

 

[bitteral]

Its still holding water-tight. But thanks for the tips. If I do spring a leak I now have some additional ideas to try out.