What you give up when you get shrinky hoses is durability. I didn't know. After two, two and a half years, I found out the hard way. It wasn't pretty. There was a hole 10 feet from one end of the thing. So I cut it in two, at the hole.
So how do you put a new hose end fitting into a shrinky hose?
I did it last year. It took hours. I kept pushing the fitting with my thumb till it was all the way in.
Yeah, but the thing came out a few weeks later. Dunno, maybe I didn't tighten it enough. Or didn't check it and re-tighten. Definitely the latter. Lesson learned, I hope.
Since then, I sat down two or three times to stuff the fitting into the hose again. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. My thumb hurt just thinking about it. I pushed on that fitting and ignored my thumb, the first time, and when I was done it hurt for a week. Felt like I pushed my thumb out from under the thumbnail.
That was using a fitting designed for half-inch hose.
So recently I had a thought: Try a smaller fitting. Try a fitting designed for 3/8" hose. So what if it's small, at least I might be able to use the hose.
So I bought some fittings. The best I could come up with locally was
- Green Leaf Garden Hose Adapter, 3/4 in. MGHT x 3/8 in. Barb @ $1.49 for the male end. And then because I didn't find a 3/4 in. FGHT x 3/8 in. Barb I had to invent one by combining a
- Green Leaf Nylon Straight Adapter, 1/2 in. MPT x 3/8 in. Barb @ $1.69 with a
- Green Leaf Nylon Garden Hose Coupling, 3/4 in. FGHT x 1/2 in FPT @ $2.29 for the female end.
It took me two minutes to insert the barb into the shrinky end. Took me almost 10 minutes to find a wrench to tighten the hose clamp.
Didn't test it yet. I'll let you know how it holds up.
3 comments:
Okay, I fixed the other half of that hose. Took more than two minutes to get the fitting in, to be sure, and my thumb hurts a little, but now I have two more useful lengths of shrinky hose, and two less things I should just throw out.
The fittings I bought cost about $12. But I still have half of them left, so figure $6 in parts used, plus some of my me-time at $0 per hour, as opposed to spending $20 or more to replace the hose that was no good.
Good deal.
PS, I tested this one in the utility sink with my Swan swivel and all. Just tried it for a minute. No leaks.
So far, so good.
The 3/8 hose barb fittings ... if I need more: Instead of splicing together two adapters by their National Pipe Thread ends for $1.29 + $2.29, I can try the Green Leaf 3/4 in. FHT x 3/8 in. Dia. Barb Nylon Adapter for $2.79. (I have to buy 5 at a time.)
Or as part of a larger order perhaps, the Nylon Swivel Female Insert x 3/4" GHT for $0.72 apiece from US Plastic. They have the males I need, too, for $0.61 apiece.
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