This is one of the small project that I did awhile back but needing some refinement. It is the fresh water filling nozzle for Brunnhilde.
my original version of the fresh water filling nozzle for Brunnhilde just needing this shutoff valve to be perfectly refined
What was lacking is a good shutoff valve. When Peter and Barbara from Germany visited me in the summer I saw this perfect valve that he used for his James Cook and I immediately wanted one. However I search for it on the web and found out I have to purchase it from Europe.
seeing Peter's fresh water refilling setup.
the only place I could find it is on Amazon German site; I have very little faith with the hassle of international purchase and shipping even with Amazon
Doing a bit of homework I found out this other similar one designed for micro-dripping irrigation can be converted to create the same shutoff valve not available in USA. The price is higher especially considering I have to add a male and female of the Gardena fittings. However I could avoid the hassle of international purchase.
When you inspect the product closely you can see that they share an identical valve body. The differences are the two piece parts at the two ends. I was confident that I can make that work. Today it arrived.
i recently snapped up a lifetime supply of this Gardena starter kit for great price - making the added cost of this project more palatable
What is interesting is the end pieces require no gasket or o-ring to fit to the valve body. The excellent flat surfaces of the plastic form a watertight fit - das ist Deutsch ingenieurwesen
sure enough I am able to create the shutoff valve that I want
here is Brunnhilde's fresh water filling nozzle that snap-fit to the valve assembly
the turning action of the valve is a pleasure to the hands; you would agree if you own a lot of Gardena products
I used a hot air gun to bend the pipe. You can do it with a low flame also. Just be patient as it take awhile for the heat to propagate through the PVC plastic. Once you obtain the curve you want you can just dunk it into a bucket of cold water to freeze the shape. All the PVC parts are glued together.
The threaded tail end PVC fitting is needed to mate to the standard Gardena male fitting. While the PVC fitting is tapered thread it fits the non-tapered thread of the Gardena male fitting just fine and the seal is done by the rubber gasket that comes with it.
some of my other gardena gardening plumbing products.
