by RC Al » Sat Jan 11, 2020 11:55 am
Only SS ferrules for me, I appreciate the simplicity of easy flanges as a cost cutting measure, but after reading how much time and mucking around people have getting them to seal, they are not cost effective if you are time poor. The SS ferules are more durable and you can order the seals easily, much less worries about leaks too, only ever had escaping vapour once when I forgot to tighten the clamps after reassembly.
If you had easy flanges then the edpm or silicon would be a better choice because they deform more to take up any irregularities. If you were planning to do a build with them, I would still recommend only using them places that dont get pulled apart often ie sight glasses - but they seem to be a big bugbear for easy flanges too, glass likes it really flat.
Sitting a 10-30kg still with a terrible centre of gravity on a boiler will destroy a soft gasket pretty quickly, even with additional bracing and supports, there is a fair bit of weight leveraging on there