Portable Outdoor Shower

How I made an Outdoor Shower



The benefits from an outdoor shower are tremendous. In hot climates one might save your life from heat stroke. My model is portable; you can place it anywhere in your yard that you see fit. You can carry one around and water your garden with it, the kids can run under it or you can spray them with it.
Those snobby neighbor ladies who like to have contrived conversations with you will turn into Mrs. Dithers watching you clean up.
Parts I used:
The hard part attaching the hose to the shower. The threading standards are different here. I cut the hose and attached it to a nozzle using a hose clamp. That’s its weak point.
Use a ball valve because it turns on and off smooth and fast without limiting variance of choice in terms of flow. You want a ball valve that is “female threaded” on both ends.
Shower Head a cheap one.
Throw a coat of Rustoleum oil based outdoor paint on it for aesthetics and durability. I used John Deer Green.
The bottom you might want to have internally threaded and fitted with a threaded plug so it fits in your stand better.
Put pipe putty on your threads and turn it all together tight with a vise and/or pipe wrench or two.
Throw a coat of Rustoleum oil based outdoor paint on it for aesthetics and durability. I used John Deer Green. I have put a sample of the parts and tools you need to build one of these in this store below, if you are like me you probably alreay have them.

Garden Hose Stand

Garden Hose Stand 05 23 2010

In these pictures you see a stand I made for our garden hose. Let me tell you why this one is better. Like the free spool on your fishing reel the garden hose comes off this stand easy and is easily coiled and replaced. As a matter of fact just grab the end of the hose when you want to wash the car and start walking and the stand tips over and the hose is free.

The base of the stand is made from the brake disc of our 2001 Buick Regal and is heavy thereby providing ballast. There was some blacksmithing involved here, I had to use a metal bender to bend the hook portion to the proportions I desired.

Follow the link to see what a metal bender looks like, you can make letters out of strip steel and heavy duty handles etc, they are fun to use, the one at the link below cost about $100 or so and the skills you are likely to learn you can transform via translation learning to other skills:

http://astore.amazon.com/homeimpro01d-20/detail/B000XMHQ2K

The column of the garden hose stand is made from a discarded weight bench part. If you see these on the curb they often make could strong supports or frameworks for projects of this nature. As always the parts are cleaned and given a coat of paint, in this case Rustoleum John Deer red tractor paint.

From my perspective, I could not buy a better hose stand for money. The parts for this one were free except for the strip of iron that was bent. You can get such iron strips at your local hardware store.

God Bless Those Who Think

Thomas Paul Murphy

Copyright 2010 Thomas Paul Murphy

http://thomasmurphyindex.blogspot.com/

Rolling and height adjustable stool from Frying Pan and Chair Base 05 20 2010

Rolling and height adjustable stool from Frying Pan and Chair Base 05 20 2010

I made this rolling and height adjustable stool from a frying pan (Teflon can’t stand) and a discarded chair wheel base. This stool is very nice for working on cars, doing work around the house, and in the yard, painting etc.. You would pay a considerable sum for something like this from the store, but both the parts are often discarded on the curb.

The wheelbase on this chair had a horizontal mounting plate with holes already in it for mounting the seat of the chair. The hardest part is centering the base to the pan. This is done by marking the center and then scratching a cross on the bottom of the pan with an awl. The cross allows you to align the base visually the pan. ¼” holes are drilled through the pan. To get the holes in correct alignment, after you drill the first hole put a bolt through it and attach a nut, use the base plate of a hole diagonal to it to drill the second, the hole in the plat being the guide. Bolt and nut that one also. Then use the base plate as a guide to drill the other two remaining holes. Make sure all bolts fit and then remove them.

Now take a countersink bit the diameter of a tapered head square ¼” diameter machine screw from McFeely’s and taper the holes on what will be the top of the seat, so that the machine screws sit flush.

Insert bolts and attach nylon lock nuts.

When I finished mine I gave the wheel base a nice coat of Rustoleum John Deer Red Paint.

You may need to use washers or your own American Ingenuity to create your own stool like this, as the parts you find may not be combinable like these. Sometimes plumbing post fittings are usable in situations like this, they look like a doughnut ring, are internally threaded and have four holes in them to mount to a flat surface, and they run about $4. The only cost to you is the hardware, nuts and bolts and paint. And if you are a handyman you should have some around already.

This makes a very nice stool and saves space in the landfill. The items are readily cleanable and do not harbor debris. This stool does move up and down and lock in place via the lever; it actually makes a ringing of a bell noise when the lever is used. I could bend the lever but I like the bell noise.

Also these types of wheels usually have a release lever or some mechanism that when activated properly allows for disassembly cleaning of dental floss and oiling with WD-40 or Super Lube Grease or whatever, it makes a difference.

God bless those who think.

Thomas Paul Murphy

Copyright 2010 Thomas Paul Murphy

www.thomasmurphyindex.blogspot.com

Garbage Can Tamp 05 20 2010

Garbage Can Tamp 05 20 2010

This tamp allows me to punch down garbage in the bag without getting my hands dirty. This allows for more compact garbage. This means less space in the landfill is used and that I have to change the garbage bag less often. It also means I do not have to get my hands dirty doing this job. This is a must have.

I made this tamp from a defunct plastic broom handle. I cut a piece the appropriate length on the end that had the handle, using a hack saw. Then I drilled a hole through the handle, with a 3/16” or ¼” drill bit for a string so that I could hang it on a screw.

God bless those who think.

Thomas Paul Murphy

Copyright 2010 Thomas Paul Murphy

www.thomasmurphyindex.blogspot.com

Tom's TARDIS

TOM’S TARDIS

This locker was discarded to the curb when someone three blocks away moved. It was cleaned and painted by me to abstractly resemble a Police call box. Doctor who used the façade of a police call box to mask the outside of his TARDIS. “Dr. Who” was a time lord of infinite incarnations in the science fiction series “Dr. Who” He was a remnant of an ancient race of time lords and episode to episode he was tossed through time and space in this craft (TARDIS) to solve problems that occurred in the fabric of time.

“TARDIS” stands for Time And Relative Distance In Space, and acronym, and is what he named his interdimensional spacecraft.

Incidentally, TARDIS is somewhat a neophyte homonym to “Tart Us” and that is exactly what I keep in it, spices that TartUs foods, and meals, as well as other forms of savory spices not as tart.

Abstract thinking question? Is the TARDIS the spice of life? Variety is said to be the spice of life. I know how to TARTUS by how to TARDIS works I could not really say for sure, at least not in this same essay. That essay would be of another dimension of word processing document and written another time, and published throughout time or never at all, the difference of being I am not sure of at the moment.

God Bless,

Thomas Paul Murphy

Copyright 2010 Thomas Paul Murphy

These are the instructions I wrote for myself before I painted it. It is good to write instructions for yourself before you do something, even if you don't follow them exactly.

TOM’S TARDIS PAINTING INSTRUCTIONS

1. Make a cardboard stencil and use darker paint and small brush to paint box panels 4 strokes per panel

2. Three horizontal bars on top. third one down should be BLACK

3. Mask around top window and use gray paint in peanut jar and sponge on stencil for windows

4. Also sponge a place for a plackard slightly smaller than panel for second one down in front. Should be gray

5. Just paint bottom of the thing below the door darkish blue

6. Mix up a similar color only a little more darkish blue and pretty much sponge the whole thing

7. Stencil spray TOM’S TARDIS on top with white spray paint

I don't think I used any spray cans. Don't like to, the last time I used a spray can was when I painted the Vinyl tile in the bathroom white with Rustoleum plastic primer, but that is a different story.

The top light is a mason jar painted with stripes and held in place via a round magnet that holds the mason jars lid to the metal top of the locker.

Ineresting enough I saw one of these full size call boxes on 05/06/2010, it is the in the lower picture at the following site and is red: http://wisconsinnaturepictures.blogspot.com/2010/05/todays-picture.html

Copyright 2010 Thomas Paul Murphy

The Pool Ball Clock

One more simple and easy clock. This clock was made by tracing out the small profile of a roll of electrical tape over colored duct tape with a pen and cutting the pieces off with a whetted scissors.

I liked this one so much that I made one just like it for the workshop but put a little glow tape on it in addition to or over the cue balls.

The clock face came from Harbor Freight Tools website and cost about $5

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Copyright 2010 Thomas Paul Murphy