I Am the First Person in the World to Make a TIMBER Vacuum Cleaner Nozzle!

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Yes you - the eternally damned; ever since your great (x a million) grand nutter got into eating apples at the dawn of the universe 5000 years ago - thus being cursed to do housework after THAT particular deity invented housework.. by inventing dust to clean up.

Well my vacuum cleaner's nozzle got trodden on a few times, and cracked, and those cracks grew until the thing came apart into 2 pieces......

Since I live in the middle of nowhere and I had some timber opportunities and resources on hand - I decided to make a NEW vacuum cleaner nozzle from timber.

This is more a work of opportunism and things on hand - all lining up; kind of like gravity and a high cliff.

I shall use some abbreviations from now on: VC = Vacuum Cleaner.

The main one being that the drill bit gave a very accurate hole in the wood, that was to fit over the end of the VC's aluminum wand.

It's a functional connection - if the wand had a coat of paint on it - it would be too tight to fit in the timber hole....

This is a pretty safe kind of a job., being that MOST of the work is done with VERY sharp hand tools, and a couple of power tools.

The only difference between the hand and power tools, is that if you get it wrong with the power saw, you can get it really wrong, really quickly and it can be anywhere from nasty to fatal - usually from blood loss - but not always.

And the hand tools... if you do what it takes to keep yourself hole and slice free - then you will; and if you don't - you will also.

Also with blade edge care - IF you need to use a chisel around a steel vice, it's a good idea to make up some WIDE across the top, soft jaws.

The start of it all - the POX plastic nozzle that got stepped on, cracked and eventually broke more or less into 2 pieces - lead of course by the finished product - the Worlds First Ever Wooden Vacuum Cleaner Nozzle.

Step 1: The Timber and Tools

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RE: Timber Tools.

I LOVE using hand tools.... I also love using very, very sharp, well looked after hand tools.

I also see - from experience that QUALITY counts above all things - and it's the quality used in all steps - from the very beginning, that makes the end result so splendid.

Since I am always in the process of upgrading and some of the learning experiences actually point to the need to upgrade I shall show these opportunities as well.

OK the NUMBER one requirement is for all the timber to be FLAT, SQUARE and LEVEL; all the cuts and drilled holes need to be STRAIGHT, SQUARE and PERPENDICULAR.

ALL of the little inaccuracies and omissions, all work together to make extra problems and extra work down the track.

The timber had been aquired from a friends yard... and it had bowed or cupped across the width of the plank.

-Which affected the accuracy of the drilled holes, the "flattening" of the faces for gluing and the overall alignment.

I am quite happy with the result and I am very sure that the carpet doesn't care much either.

The nozzle was made from kind of scrap timber and hand tools.... tho really there is no such thing as scrap - as you can even make great things with saw dust.

OK here is the timber and the tools used - the power saw wasn't included... but

Step 2: Shaping the Wand Connector.

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This is the fab bit:

Basically it's just a few squareish chunks of the timber, cut and drilled and then flattened with a wood plane and glued into a stack; and

Then - because the wooden ring on top - was actually a reject core from a hole saw - which was used to see if the drill bit would make a neat well fitting hole, well that got glued onto the stack as well;

And then it was all shaped to make the square stack taper into a circular top.....

When the stack was glued with hide glue (or use about 30% by weight gelatin to water), I lightly smeared the aluminium wand with grease to stop the glue from sticking to it, while the want served as an "alignment pin" through the blocks...

The blocks were glued and pinned into a stack, the glue was allowed to set, and then the right angle for me to use the wand was figured out and the base of the wand was cut at that angle...

Those are the only missing photos....
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Step 3: Making the Floor Sucker Bit.

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This was pretty easy... just sus it out and cut it up....

All the shaping was done with wood chisels... and the smoothing up was done with wood planes.

Step 4: A Final Clean Up and Then Some Finishing Touches.

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When it was all done, it was coarsely sanded on all the joints, bonded with hide glue; or about 30% by weight or volume of gelatin and water; and it was sealed with the same.

Gelatin or proper hide glue actually sets as hard as fiber glass resin... sort of; and it's very hard wearing - but it has ONE drawback - it goes soft and sticky in water or high humidity.

BUT it is very hard wearing - and this coating will protect the timber from wear;

AND it is easy to make more to recoat the nozzle underside; as it's the only glue that sticks to it's self.

So there you go.

The worlds very first ever wooden vacuum cleaner nozzle, and I created it.

This may not in fact be true; but I have never ever seen or hear of a wooden one being made ever....

And it works quite well...