Homestead mailing list

[Rob <becida AT comcast.net>]

Date:   Sun, 21 Feb 1999 19:49:04 -0500
Reply-To: homestead AT listserv.oit.unc.edu
Sender: owner-homestead AT listserv.oit.unc.edu
From: Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT roanoke.infi.net>
To: homestead AT listserv.oit.unc.edu
Subject: Cheap ways to lift, actuate equipment around the house and barn.
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You need to lift a platform three feet?, ten feet?, move, lift or rotate
a heavy gate?  You don't want the hazard of electricity at the site?
You can do it with a garden hose and ball-valve attached to your water
supply, and homemade plastic hydraulic cylinders made of four-inch PVC
pipe and plumbing fittings from your building supply house.  The
plastic, aluminum or wood piston can be turned in a wood lathe or metal
lathe for a slip-fit inside the pipe.  Machine a couple grooves to take
an o-ring obtainable at an industrial supply house, drill or bore and
thread one end to receive a piece of  threaded 1/2" black iron pipe, the
other end of which receives whatever kind of adapter is appropriate to
attach to the equipment being operated by the piston.

At forty pounds household water pressure, each cylinder exerts a little
over five hundred pounds thrust---gang them for more work.

Single-acting cylinders, with spring or weight and cable-return are
easiest to make.  With extra effort you can make double-acting cylinders
(Use a Hayward or other three-way plastic valve which vents to
atmosphere the back side of the piston plumbing)  Attach caps to both
ends---in each of which would be machined an interior groove for an
o-ring through which the pipe would slide, and the piston drilled and
tapped to receive a pipe in each end.  The pipe would have to be
polished often to keep rust off, or better, use a stainless pipe.

Using PVC pipe has an advantage over regular hydraulic cylinders in that
you can have very long piston travel cheaply.  A ten-foot stroke
commercial hydraulic cylinder would put your kid through a year in
college.