Construction advice, please?

Thorn

Thorn

Member
I'm making my own dog agility equipment, and have learned a lot along the way. I've run into a small snag with the latest project and hopefully someone can suggest something I haven't thought of doing.

The big material used in all of these items is Sched. 40 PVC, roughly equivalent to furniture grade PVC, which of course we can't get here in the hinterland anyway. My latest effort involves 4 foot sections of 1/2" id PVC pipe that I've cut a slit in lengthwise with a 24-tooth hacksaw blade (so the slit is extremely narrow). Into this I've been able to slide, with some effort, 46" long pieces of plastic that I cut from a well liner. OK, a LOT of effort. (These eventually will serve as 4 1/2" deep displaceable panels in a jump that will look solid to the dog.) I'm having a lot of trouble with the last piece. Of course the commercially made panels like this must have a tool that temporarily spreads the PVC pipe to allow the mfr to just drop the panel in. I have the last panel about 2/3 of the way inserted, and perhaps this morning I'd just run out of steam or was in too much hurry, but it's still sitting there. (Also it was cold in the garage).

Does anybody have any ideas how to make this an easier job? I've bneen using channel pliers (wrapped the teeth with plastic tape) to pull but even that didn't work today. I just want to get this thing finished. For something so simple it's turned out to be one of the most frustrating obstacles I've made. Even the teeter was easier than this!

I went to a lot of trouble finding just the right adhesive (the panels were especially coated to react only to a water based adhesive, and few of those would bond to PVC). Now it looks as if I'm not even going to need that, though I'll use it anyway.
 
Heat the PVC with a hot air gun or even hot water ? Pvc gets soft when hot and stiffens back up when cooled. while warm put something a bit thicker than the final panel in the slot while it cools. this should relieve enough pressure to allow you to slide the other thinner piece in later with less difficulty.

A piece of stovepipe to put the PVC in while heating could help you to heat it up evenly, which is the main problem I have found. If the pieces were small enough to put in the oven while just on warm....Warning fire risk though.

I think they make tubes for heating PVC for bending and such...
 
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Another thought.
Make a jig to allow you to cut one side open on a table saw. With a thin blade perhaps it would remove the right amount of material....

Perhaps a strip of wood as thick as the tube is high with another piece overlapping it to hold the tube down and the jig clamped to the rip fence on the table saw ?
 
A small wooden wedge should allow you to open up the gap and get the other piece in.

If you decide to heat up the PVC, be very careful. The fumes are toxic as hell.
 
Thanks, guys! Well you were right and warming the piece, just at room temp when I brought it inside, was enough to get the last panel inserted with some effort. I didn't want to cut too large a channel because as it stands, the slot is tight enough to hold the panel without glue.

Anyway, here it is completed, in situ. I made all the obstacles you see except for the red tunnel in the back. There's another bar jump further off to the right out of the frame.

Paneljumpetc.jpg
 
Very cool!!

You want to as good a person as your dog thinks you are, and yet you keep raising the bar on that!

(pun was intentional)
 
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