[grole]

At Chet's prompting I thought I would put a couple of pics of the Paralettes and Wheels I put together last weekend



There are a couple of other pictures of them in my Gallery

http://www.funckey.c...?...um&album=14

Peter

[chrisap]

Good work on the paralettes Peter, how long did they take to put together?

[Chet]

Cool toys!

Thanks for putting those up mate

Was going to ask the same about the wheels...did they take you long bud?

[grole]

chrisap, on Apr 25 2008, 05:44 PM, said:

Good work on the paralettes Peter, how long did they take to put together?

Not sure exactly how long. I made the wheels and paralettes in about an hour to an hour and half, and I am sure the wheels took longer (winding the tape round the handles).

Both were surprisingly easy to make. The only difficulty I had was getting a straight cut across the pipes, and that was down to either my lack of skill or the silly little hacksaw I was using.

The total costs were

Paralletes 39 Euros

Wheels 21 Euros

The main costs with the paralletes were the Elbows, T pieces and end caps.

I am sure most of the stuff could have been bought cheaper, I just don't know the good stores vs the bad over here.

Peter

[grole]

I guess I should add that I did diverge from Ross's wheel design slightly as the place where I got the wheels from had some axles right next to them, so I bought one of those and cut it in half, rather than using a hex bolt as Ross suggested.

[Beev]

Good job with the wheels. Going to up a pic of mine soon. Havent made any paralettes yet but plan to some day!

Yours,
Beev

[grole]

Beev, on Aug 25 2008, 02:27 PM, said:

Good job with the wheels. Going to up a pic of mine soon. Havent made any paralettes yet but plan to some day!

Yours,
Beev

Seen your pic, nicely done.

The paralettes are really easy to make. Going to make up a second set shortly (have all the pipes/elbows etc in the garage), so that I can have a pair in the Uk and a pair in holland. May do the same with the wheels too.

May do a sandbag soon, if I can find myself a convenient canvas bag.

[Franz29]

You could set up an import business for the parallette pipes; the stuff over here is useless for them so I know I'd pay to have the materials shipped over from the continent!

[grole]

Franz29, on Aug 25 2008, 07:32 PM, said:

You could set up an import business for the parallette pipes; the stuff over here is useless for them so I know I'd pay to have the materials shipped over from the continent!

Franz

I had noticed that the fittings were difficult to find here in the UK. Everywhere I looked all they have is the stuff with rubber seals built in that is supposed to be used without glue. Also, the only Tees that I could find were the not traditional tees but rather the ones that have a specific flow direction.

Looking for 'solvent weld' fittings online seemed to find stuff closer to what was needed. I ended up bringing the bits I needed back from holland.

I could bring stuff back for others if there is any demand, but it would have to wait until the next time I drive from NL to UK. I don't really fancy trying to go through airport security or on Eurostar with loads of plumbing fittings.

I am in the Uk for the next week and a half, but when I go back I will pop into one of the DIY type places and take note of the prices of the tees, bends and end caps (it should be simple to source the pipe in the uk). May also see if I can find a source for larger quantities.

Regards

Peter

[Franz29]

Sounds like a plan. Hopefully you are right about the piping, the stuff I got from B&Q isn't strong enough and bends when you put weight on it but I will look around some more.

LOL at the security, they would probably think you are trying to smuggle in a ground to air missile tube or make some pipe bombs. Probably not a good idea to try

[grole]

Put together another toy / piece of kit, a sandbag.

I drove past a military surplus place in Bedford on Saturday and couldn't resist sneaking back while my other half was in the park, and grabbing a canvas kit bag. A quick trip to B&Q on sunday netted a couple of 23kg (ish) bags of play sand, some rubble sacks and some gaffer tape.

I basically split each of the bags of play sand into 3, double bagged it in the rubble sacks and threw them into the kit bag.



The sandbag is about 47 kg fully loaded and a little bit too solid for my liking. I probably should have gone with a larger number of smaller inner bags and made more effort to loosely tape them up. Thats a job for another day.

[Franz29]

Nice work. I used ziplok bags double taped with duct tape and weighed at a kilo each. I now have up to 60 kilos of sandbags I can stick in the duffel and it's nice and unweildy

[grole]

Franz29, on Oct 14 2008, 07:42 PM, said:

Nice work. I used ziplok bags double taped with duct tape and weighed at a kilo each. I now have up to 60 kilos of sandbags I can stick in the duffel and it's nice and unweildy

That's what I should have done. Splitting the sand into just 6 inner rubble sacks has just given me a heavy, lumpy bag. All because I couldn't be bothered to go into a different shop to get the ziplocs.

When I get round to it I will pick up some ziplocs and rebag the sand into them.

[grole]

Franz29, on Aug 25 2008, 08:32 PM, said:

You could set up an import business for the parallette pipes; the stuff over here is useless for them so I know I'd pay to have the materials shipped over from the continent!

Franz

I had cause to pop into a DIY place near our Amsterdam Datacentre today. I remembered this conversation and picked up the following

3 x 2m lengths of grey 40mm pvc pipe (@ 5.19 euro each)

16 x 40mm grey end caps (@0.75 euro ea)
8 x 40mm grey T piece (@1.89 euro ea)
8 x 40mm grey 90deg bend (1.29 euro ea)

Which should be enough to make 2 pairs of paralettes (dependent on dimensions).

If you or anyone else wants them and we can work out how to get them from SG19 3EP postcode to you then you are welcome. If not then I will use the above to make up some different size paralettes (lower, higher, longer or shorter).

I will be back in the UK over the christmas period, have my last 2 weeks in Holland at the start of January, then back in the Uk permanently from Jan 17th (ish), so any pickup / delivery will need to revolve around those dates.

Regards
Peter

[Franz29]

PM inbound.

[Will]

Do you have a guide for putting the parallettes together? I have neglected to put mine together still and have lost the link your provided which contained the instructions and dimensions etc.

[grole]

Will

The instructions at Home made parallettes or DIY Pralettes are fairly reasonable. Both sets of instructions suggest 18" length, but I would probably shrink that back by a few inches.

- Peter

[Will]

Awesome! Thanks a lot.