Does anyone know what to use as a gasket for the lens? I was thinking about using a ring for a pressure cooker. as for the other gasket material around the number boards and door. It looks like a braided material. Would fiberglass rope for stoves / boiler doors work? What about using braided packing gland material?

Mark

Another possible material is felt strips. I have helped put together traction headlight rings using felt strips formed around the frame and then placing the glass on top of that. Used plan Gaskacinch as the adhesive to hold the felt to the frame. Then there were clamps to hold the glass in place.

There's a lot of stuff that will work fine. Cotton cord glued into the slot in the frame is one alternative, rope packing certainly would also be fine. It is more the dimension of the stuff than the composition of the stuff that matters. It needs to hold tightly against the lens when closed, but not compress and stress the frames or lens too much or warpage and possible breakage could occur.

dave

We have several Pyle lamps in our museum collection so I went down and looked to see what was used. It appears to be a felt material. I would recomomend going to an indurstiral gasket shop to see what they have for material that will work. We have had good sucess doing that here and most of the time its is such a small amount of material they just give it to us.

You might want to try and contact Trans-Lite -- the company that bought out Pyle's product line:

http://www.trans-liteinc.com/index.html

On steam-style Pyle headlights, the lens was surrounded by a deep C-shaped neoprene gasket that fit around the glass. It bore on the flat inside of the aluminum door, and the lens was held down by clamps. The rubber gasket kept the metal clamps from touching the glass and cracking it. Two layers of rubber glued to the glass would work. So might a trip to a window dealer, or a trip through the J.T. Nelson gasket catalog, or similar supplier. You might also slit a rubber tube to fit over the glass.

If the headlight frame has a rounded channel for a tubular gasket, a SOFT rubber hose of the right diameter would work, again with a layer of rubber on the back of the glass to insulate it against the clamps.