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?
The angle grinder idea is the easiest and probably cheapest, they can be bought very cheap these days, I saw one for 20€ in a shop, brand new the other day, I’m sure you could look at the second hand market and get something very cheap.
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.
You’ve already considered cutting a hole in the wall big enough to fit an arm through to reach the valve?
@lettruthout No I haven’t. Interesting idea.
I would like the hole to be as small as possible. I have a solid steel rod on hand (ø=12mm) but I could even get a smaller one. This would be the least intrusive on a structural wall (brick), which technically I’m not supposed to touch without planning permission. I would bend that rule for a rod ≤12mm. I’m not sure if removing a whole brick is bit risky since it’s an old house and the state of the brick is probably dodgy to begin with.