DIY Spiral-Wrap Hyd Hose Protector

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I noticed a lot of tractors have spiral-wrap on the hydraulic hoses to protect them from damage....


I wanted to buy some of this spiral-wrap to put on my hoses where they rub against the FEL frame, but couldn't find it at a reasonable price, the only stuff I found was for tidying cables and it was quite expensive....

I decided I could make my own from 19mm(3/4")ID poly garden irrigation pipe, it's cheap to buy at most hardware stores down here... (BTW, it's wall thickness is about 1/16")

This is the jig I made for cutting it:


I started using a (snap off blade) knife, but it was too hard to hold.


So I swapped the knife for a scraper blade:



The jig is made from a scrap off 1"ID high pressure poly pipe, I cut the slots across it at 110 degrees with a hacksaw, the slots are about 1" apart... The washer was originally to set the width of the cut, but the cut is more reliant on the angle of the blade, but I've left the washer in there as it helps pull the cut material away from the blade, and reduces the force needed to turn the pipe...

It works great




Now all I need to do is tape the blade into the jig, and go buy a roll of the 19mm pipe

Matthew

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I purchased a 60 foot roll of the 3/4" poly pipe today.... it cost me $7... ($6 US)

covered all the hoses on the lower 1/2 of the tractor... I wasn't planning to cover them all, but thought I may as well since it costs next to nothing....


If I had a lathe, I think I'd put the jig-cutter in the lathe chuck, and feed the uncut pipe through the spindle... It would make the cutting process a LOT quicker...

I found the easiest way to wrap it around the hoses is to roll it up like this:

when I was rolling up long lengths I taped it up every few feet, so if I dropped it, it wouldn't turn into a birds nest


I wrapped it around a bundle of 3 hoses (P+T+PB) with no problems:






I'm a bit concerned it might sag and hang loose when the tractors left out in the sun all day and the poly heats up, so I wrapped it on as tight as possible, and fastened the ends by melting a soldering iron tip through an overlapped layer :



I'll attack the FEL another day

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This has been on the tractor for over a year now (69 hours on the clock), it's still all as good as it was the day I put it on.

Matthew.

[Ronmar]

OOOHH!
You are way to cool to be here:0

That is an excellent idea, that poly pipe should make excellent spiral wrap, and your cutter makes it look pretty easy to do.

Thanks

Ron

[GuglioLS]

Matthew,

I am always amazed at your clever ideas. Your spiral poly pipe cut tool is so simple and effective you could make several of them to sell at hardware stores. One day I should make one, chuck it up in a lathe and whip out a couple kilometers of spiral cut pipe. Did the blade get hot? Or did you turn it slow, Did your wrists get worn out? Maybe the cut pipe would be worth more than selling the tool or it's idea?

Do you think another benefit of wrapping all the hoses on your tractor is to help save them from drying out or cracking from exposure to the sun?

Great idea, thanks for sharing this.


Larry

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Ron:
That is an excellent idea, that poly pipe should make excellent spiral wrap, and your cutter makes it look pretty easy to do.
Thanks Ron ... it's surprisingly quick and easy to cut but it takes a while to wrap it onto the hoses...

Larry:
Did the blade get hot? Or did you turn it slow, Did your wrists get worn out?
As far as I know it didn't get hot, but by hand you can only turn it so fast, the guide washer helps pull the cut material away from the blade and reduced the effort need to turn it, so I guess that would help stop the blade getting hot.... it wasn't too bad on the wrists, it's pretty easy to do ....

Do you think another benefit of wrapping all the hoses on your tractor is to help save them from drying out or cracking from exposure to the sun?
I guess it would have to help.... The main reason I did it was to protect the hoses from mechanical damage from chaffing and branches and stuff hitting them... (the outer sheathing on the Chinese hose seems fairly thin)

I did plan to make a more substantial tool out of a bit of steel pipe and have a decent mount with grub screws to hold the blade but it never happened, The makeshift cutter made from poly-pipe does the job fine, I just had to wrap the blade in electrical tape so I didn't cut my fingers off

Thanks for your comments Ron and Larry

Matthew.