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?
Sorry, but IMO, None of your ideas will work.
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
Wood gears: Much harder than you think, but not impossible with the right tools, but I’m assuming you don’t have them. If you are determined you can go check out https://woodgears.ca/ however, he has some templates you can print out and cut out.
Bicycle cassette: Those are sprockets not gears. They would be quite clunky and difficult to use as gears.
The best thing to do would be to simply relocate the valve. With some sharkbite fittings and some copper pipe and a Pipe Cutter you could easily relocate the valve, and there would be less work than trying to fit in a cobbled together right angle gearbox.
I’m for the relocation idea. Get some PEX and the related prices. Not cheap initially but very reliable and super easy to do as a DIY.
I should have clarified, the gear templates on woodgears.ca can’t likely be used as is. You would would likely either have to bevel the teeth or use the “divide” option and use dowels as gears to make pin gears like this
@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
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).
I wouldnt use pex. A sharkbite will work with regular copper tube. The peg gear system would be the easiest to “cobble together” without too many tools.