Garden Hose Watering Wand using PVC pipe

thingiverse

This design is two parts: a cone watering spout and a handle that screws onto a standard garden hose. The pieces are connected by a piece of half-inch PVC (approximately 21.5mm in diameter). The great thing about this design is you can make it pretty much as long as you like for reaching hanging plant pots on a tall structure like a pergola, or plants deep into a mulched area. I used schedule 40 PVC.My picture shows a wand where the PVC has a nice smooth bend like most commercial watering wands have. This is actually very easy to do. Simply get a few cups of dirt/sand out of your garden and sift it into a baking pan. Put the sifted sand into the oven at 400 degrees F for about an hour. While the sand is warming up, stuff a rolled up paper towel inside the PVC tubing about 4 inches and seal it up with masking tape. Use a sheet of paper folded in half to make a funnel and use masking tape to secure it to the other end of the PVC. When the sand is done baking, pour the hot sand into the PVC tube. You really only need enough sand to go about 6 inches past where to intend to bend the PVC. As pictured, lay the pipe on its side and put something like a roll of tape on the tip. The pipe will become very soft and bend from the weight of the tape roll. Just leave it like that for a couple hours and it will cool down and the pipe won't crease or kink. You can also use a hair dryer, but the sand method is better as it prevents the pipe from kinking. As you can see I used a food can so the pipe would curve around it. Once cooled, take off all the tape and dump the dirt out and rinse out the pipe with water.The design should fit standard half-inch PVC nice and snug exactly as designed. I've included a test-fit ring you can print to see if it fits your pipe. You might need to trim the inner edge if your print has some elephants footing/lip. Different filaments expand differently and printer settings vary, so if it seems like the pipe simply won't fit you can go into your slicer settings and enable Horizontal Expansion by about 0.05mm and then re-print the test ring and check again. Mine fit on the first print like a glove without using Horizontal Expansion.I printed this design in PETG because I'm going to leave it outside in the sun. PETG is UV resistant. PLA will work just fine but it will degrade in sunlight/outdoors. I recommend printing with 5 walls for extra strength with 20% infill.To glue the PVC, I used Original Gorilla Glue. You could probably also use PVC primer and PVC cement. The nice thing about Original Gorilla Glue is that it expands as it dries which fills in the print lines and seals very well. You only need about 2-3 drops of Original Gorilla Glue for each end. It also gives you about 30 minutes to work. PVC cement is actually a solvent (when used properly with PVC primer) that melts and fuses PVC to PVC and it locks up in a few seconds. You will need either a standard garden hose rubber washer or alternately you can probably use plumbers tape on the hose threads. As always, if printed as directed, this design requires no supports. (Print the handle standing up with a brim and the hose threads at the top and the non-threaded PVC side touching the print surface.)Most people cut their PVC with a hacksaw, but if you like to use PVC for projects then I would recommend getting a PVC cutting tool. Unlike a hacksaw, the cutter slices through PVC up to 2 inches or so like a hot knife through butter! And... with a perfectly clean and straight edge and no PVC shavings. Thank you for your support! If you find my designs useful can show some love completely FREE by simply installing Temu and signing up using my Temu Associate link:https://temu.to/m/u35zqoy1w8mNot only can you buy 3D printer items and parts needed to make my designs, you also get a really nice discount. Temu ships pretty quickly, the prices are really low, and the quality is very good. The credits I earn from referrals help me buy filament and publish more free useful designs.Enjoy my designs? You can buy me a coffee... I love coffee:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/hrhkn9p4vh1As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.You can get a PVC cutting tool here:https://amzn.to/3RuWgI3Original Gorilla Glue:https://amzn.to/46OcQrvGarden Hose Rubber Washers:https://amzn.to/3tSPQc8