Spiral Wound Gaskets: Decoding The Colours
Colour coding is one of the smartest ways that we humans have used to categorise different things. From ice cream flavours to bathroom taps to guitar strings, colour coding is a simple and memorable way of remembering things… we bet you can name all four Teletubbies by colour, off the top of your head!
It’s such a good system for categorisation that we’ve even used it for spiral wound gaskets, assigning each gasket material a certain colour. There are two types of colouring when it comes to spiral wound gaskets. The outside rim colours indicate the winding materials of the gasket while the rim stripe colours indicate the filler material of the gasket. Let’s take a look at the winding materials of gaskets and their corresponding colour codes.
What is the winding material of the gasket?
But first, what do we mean by ‘winding material’? The winding material of the gasket makes up one part of the sealing element and is usually a resilient metal, like the ones listed below. These are the colour codes for the various winding materials of gaskets.
- Yellow means 304 stainless steel gasket material. That means the inner ring and metallic windings are made of 304 stainless steel.
- Green is 316 stainless steel.
- Turquoise is 321 stainless steel.
- Blue is 347 stainless steel.
- Orange means that it’s made from Monel.
- Black is Alloy 20
- Silver is carbon steel
- Brown is Hastelloy B
- Beige is Hastelloy C
- Gold is Inconel
- Red is Nickel
- Purple is Titanium
What is the filler material of a gasket?
The second part of the sealing element of a spiral wound gasket is the filler material. Unlike the winding material, the filler is a soft, non-metallic material such as PTFE or graphite. The rim stripe colour tells you the gasket has one of the following filler materials.
- Pink indicates mica paper
- Grey indicates graphite
- White indicates PTFE
- Light Green indicates ceramic
Why gasket colour codes matter
Gasket colour codes are a super important thing to be aware of:
- Ease of identification
They help you quickly and clearly identify the gasket material, making it easy to distinguish between two different gaskets. - Never get the wrong gasket
When you’re able to decode gasket colours, you’ll never have to worry about choosing the wrong gasket.
By learning the colour coding systems, you’ll become an expert on spiral wound gaskets – just like the specialists at Steamline Engineering. They stock a range of high quality gaskets from trusted manufacturers like Carrera and Firefly. Supplying various gaskets from various materials, Steamline are also Australia’s leading team for other industrial equipment like thermal tapes and seals, welding blankets and valve packing materials. Browse the arrange at Steamline Engineering and get your quality products shipped Australia-wide.