I suspect it was spelt "luting". Seems to be mostly a dental term these days but relates to puttys and cements so could have been one of those old school pre-silicone mastics.

Rod

Edit:  Too slow yet again

Edited By Roderick Jenkins on 18/03/2022 23:04:44

I use plasticine for these.

Also good as a "damper" on long thin boring bars.

Jim

Luting, a soft pliable sealer. Used in Instruments to seal threads and as a gasket on flat serfaces like binocular end plates.

it was found that some minute insects would bore into it, due to the fact it had bees wax component. Soon overtaken by soft pliable plastic seals.

As an aside many optical instruments that are sealed now have Nitrogen filling as it is inert and stops condensation.

The musical instrument comes from the Arabic 'al 0ud'.

We still call makers of plucked instruments 'luthiers'.

Having been only a signed chit away from a MOD stores for most of my career, one of the materials we used to use was Apiezon Q compound – a black putty suitable for use in vacuum systems. I guess this could have been (mis) appropriated by the machinists. It was probably quite expensive but we would never know that.

Rod

It sounds like the stuff my father used when he was a dockyard apprentice in the 1920s. They used to roll it into little balls and fire it at each other through bits of pipe. Apparently there was a neighbouring house with a roof window visible over the dockyard wall. When the window was open the challenge was to fire a pellet through the opening. Dad wondered if the occupants ever worked out where the little black pellets came from.

George

We still do, although PVC window frames and double/insulated glazing tend to be used with silicone rubbers.

I never realized that there was a word for the stuff that coolant dams are made with. I've got a couple of fairly significant plasticine ones on the surface grinder table. Some idiot (me) didn't get it properly leveled when grouting it into place. That'll be fixed if/when I get around to rebuilding it..