I need to come up with a right angle gearbox (example)
I’m not a blacksmith and local hardware stores are coming up empty apart from selling a right angle drill attachment (which would work but they’re a bit pricey for my purpose).
The purpose: to hide a water valve (positioned upright) & control it from the other side of a wall. (back story)
My ideas so far:
find a broken angle grinder that someone threw away (seems unlikely) & cannabalize the gears
build right angle gears out of wood
harvest worn down bicycle cassettes from the trash and orient them at right angles against each other. They are designed to mate with a chain, so I’m not sure how well it would work. The valve is only turned on/off a couple times per year, so maybe I can get away with it.
go to a toy store and find a kid’s Capsela set (do they still make these?); though I imagine it might exceed the cost of a right angle drill accessory anyway and it would possibly break under stress.
What other tools or appliances should I look for on a dumpster dive which would likely contain a right angle gearbox?
@DownwardSpiral Thanks for the suggestion. I’m not sure if a rubber hose (like a garden hose) could take the pressure without kinking. A flex shaft did occur to me, which is in some Dremel kits and also sold for drills. I think a flex shaft accessory would work but then I’m probably approaching the cost of a right angle attachment anyway. I’ll keep it in mind though. It would indeed be cheap to use a small section of garden hose if it can handle the torque. Perhaps a hose inside of a hose to add strength and resist the hose getting twisted.
(edit) I have an old plumber’s snake that’s in rough shape. Perhaps i could cut a bit of that off and run it through a garden hose, and use the snake as a flex shaft. Though it might not do too well in the counter-clockwise direction of rotation.
I would like the hole to be as small as possible. I have a solid steel rod on hand (ø=12mm) but I could even get a smaller one. This would be the least intrusive on a structural wall (brick), which technically I’m not supposed to touch without planning permission. I would bend that rule for a rod ≤12mm. I’m not sure if removing a whole brick is bit risky since it’s an old house and the state of the brick is probably dodgy to begin with.
@francisfordpoopola
It seems a bit sloppy to run water where water isn’t needed just to control it. I’ve not ruled it out entirely but I think that implies cutting two ¾" holes to run ½" pipe in each direction, which is perhaps structurally comparable to removing a whole brick. And if I remove a whole brick, I might as well just stick my hand through to reach the valve. Though to be clear I don’t know if it’s one layer of brick or two. Since it’s interior, probably one.
Regarding PEX, I have very little confidence in it. I just fixed a huge amount of damage because PEX that was only 13 years old leaked enough to collapse a ceiling. I also have a PEX compression fitting that I had to replace every 6 months routinely until I decided to replace the fitting with a longer run of PEX. Normally I would favor soldered copper. However, the input side of the valve is steel (copper-incompatible) and the other side of it is PEX. So indeed it’d be steel (with many threaded joints) or PEX with fewer joints. At least ½ the PEX joints would be accessible.
@Gordon
angle grinder: The gear ratio is probably around 4:1 or more so you’d either be turning the knob forever or it would be very difficult to turn
Once or twice a year, I wouldn’t be too bothered with 4 rotations for every valve rotation. A ball valve is only ¼ of a rotation anyway. Although the valve I’m favoring ATM has a replaceable cartridge which is not a ball valve but I think it only needs 1 or 2 rotations. If I needed to close the valve often, then I would consider the inverse: making it hard to turn but then put a big wheel on the wall & do a steampunk style.
Regarding the wood gears, the pegs had not occured to me and perhaps they are a good approach. Quite simple and may even work with scrap Ikea particle board. I know there are some youtube vids on right angle gears in wood but I’ve not watched them yet. I know flat gears can be done with just a drill and jigsaw (though I don’t have a jigsaw).
It would be nice to have curtains that absorb street noise.
Some custom curtain tailors offer a fabric that claims to be soundproof. It’s a little pricey. Not absurdly pricey, but it’s also a bit hard to be confident that such thin fabrics can absorb much sound (they claim 20%).
I would prefer to try hacks. I’ve heard that thick furniture moving pads absorb sound well. I’ve also heard that fiberous fabrics can be effective. For the moment, I probably want to pass on edgy ideas like egg cartons. Maybe later on those. What fabrics are decent for reducing sound? Specifically, I’m wondering about carpets or painter’s drop cloths. Not the simple white canvas drop cloths, but the thicker drop cloths may out of recycled fabrics.
I’m most interested in a cheap option so the paragraph on “Industrial Blankets” caught my attention. But it didn’t give much detail or mention how carpet fairs in comparison.
As an experiment, I took mattress someone threw out and pulled the memory foam-like pad out, and stuffed that into my window, then hung a cheap normal blackout curtain with a drop cloth safety pinned onto that, then i have a thermal curtain hanging on a 2nd support track. It seems to work well although I’ve not tried it on a noisey night. Weekend is coming so maybe I’ll have a better idea next week.
@CCatMan I appreciate the advice. So this kind of answers one of my questions. I wondered if I take a painter’s drop cloth in matching dimensions to the curtain and attach it, would that be much different than if I double the size of the drop cloth and attach it with deliberate folds (like pleated pants). What you said somewhat implies that It would help to use double the size of drop cloth and force some deliberate folds which would create an air gap with the curtain.