Text removed as information is no longer current
 

Text removed as information is no longer current

You may want to consider which absorbs less water to reduce the potential for rusting as any grit between gasket and sheet metal will act as sandpaper to remove paint in that area if any movement at all is possible.

Felt worked fine in the old vehicles, but the question is"was it replaced because of price, or was the man made stuff better?"
Back in the day radiators were solid

Yes, sheeps' wool has some natural oils until it is processed. (for that matter, human hair gets oily unless washed...) I used to have hand knitted mitts made of the "oiled" wool that stayed much dryer and warmer as a result than the more refined but oil-less variety although they felt and smelled different.
Felt must also have fairly good wet strength as it was used for years as the belt in the wet end of paper machines to let water flow through out of the pulp as the first stage of drying. The water flowed through rather than being absorbed.

IN the dirty 30s and scarcity of the 40s....
 

The belts used were woven wool that had been scalded/shrunk to a very tight mass.

When ever a belt broke at J R Booth or EB Eddy there was a fight going on to see who could get a piece of the belting to take home for blankets.... heavy but vey warm. Mine was drak beige ( probably a production staining) bordered with Corporal stripe lacing...... my grandmother worked at home sewing lanc, corporal and Sergeant stripes to OD backing or in BLue for the Air Farce.

They also had a very very heavy woven cotton, almost like string, belting on the drier machines...... salvaged an used as floor covering in Summer kitchens.... required many coats of oil paint buyt almost indestructable. My Dad rood a small shed with that stuff.... just belached white with the Sun.

Breaking a dryer belt was a major event has they had to shut down the mill for a few days... longer is the break was due to an employee falling in the machine.

They called those the good old days.


Do you remember that heavy pinkish rolled carpet in the attic of the barn..... the one we had a hard time moving... that was a later synthetic belt from EB Eddy in Hull circa 1980 + or -

I just thought about the carrier fuel tanks that rust out above the felt squares that the tanks sit on. :(