old vac pot seals

[sduck27]

is there any way to soften up old vac pot seals? 

[ButtWhiskers]

is there any way to soften up old vac pot seals? 

There is a thread out here somewhere with a big discussion of that.  The gist:

1)  The rubber gets shrunk and hardened with 'glaze', which can be removed with certain solvents.
2)  Most of these solvents are not really intended for use around food, and some are pretty nasty.
3)  At the same time, many of these solvents are used in the manufacture of these things in the first place, so caveat emptor. 


Alternately, you can use food-grade silicone grease (like they use on soft-serve ice cream machines) to make a good seal.  http://www.rtxs.com/xcart/product.php?productid=16152

[Tex]

I've got the world's best hardware store in my neighborhood! I've found they have o-rings that make perfect seals for my vintage GE vac pot. I just had to put three of them on the tube to get them to properly mate with the bottom pot.

This hardware store caters to the local farmers & pipeline workers so they have the best o-ring selection I've ever seen! An online dealer should suffice if you can't get to Pearland.

[sduck27]

I got a sunbeam c30a vac pot for free all together the seal doesn't work.  I also got a poppery for free in the same trip.