Hose Reel

I bought a hose reel a few weeks ago, not sure exactly how to attach it to anything.  The instructions say it MUST be attached to a wall or affixed to the ground.

HAH!

I decided I wanted it to swivel, so that I could pull the hose off in different directions.  My initial thought was to put a 2" metal pipe in the ground and set a 3" PVC pipe on top of that so that would rotate on the metal pipe with some support structure to hold the hose reel.

That got kind of complicated, and PVC pipe is not the sturdiest stuff.  So I let it sit in my mind a few days.

I was shopping for other stuff at the DIY store, and noticed a little 4" turntable (aka Lazy Susan) and thought, "Hey, I have a 12" one of those I bought at a yard sale years ago because I thought it "might be useful".

But I couldn't figure out how to attach it to a post AND attach it to the hose reel.  The internet is an amazing thing.  Ask the RIGHT question, and some other people know the answer and even do a video showing how.

I had figured out how part of it worked.  There was a big hole in the bottom that allowed access to all the smaller holes.  But I still couldn't see how to get at both the top and bottom since it seemed the holes got covered by a board no matter what I did.

Sneaky tricky stuff, but it all had to have a purpose.  The big hole was the key.  And not attaching the hose reel directly to the turntable.  The video I watched showed about using the big hole to allow access to all the other small srew holes.  I got THAT right.  But then it showed attaching 2 square boards to the top and bottom and THEN attaching your "whatever" to the top baord.

DUH!  Slapped forehead.  And the video even expected that.  It said "you can't do it the way you want to directly".

So I needed 2 boards suitable for outside conditions.  Well, I could buy a sheet of pressure treated plywood and cut it to size.  Or use stuff I had.  I didn't have anything 12" wide.  But I had scraps of 2"x8" boards leftover from building the framed garden beds 2 years ago.

But I had to attach 2 pieces of it twice together (a top and a bottom).  Gluing wasn't sturdy enough.  But I had a "biscuit joiner" I bought 20 years ago and had only used once.  AHA, I had a reason to use it!  A biscuit joiner cuts oval shapes in the edge of a board and you gkue precut ovals into the cut slots.

I ran the scraps of wood through my planer to make the surfaces flat and exactly the same thickness, used the plate joiner to cut slots in the edges and glued in the biscuits (ovals).  Clamped them tight and held them flat with clamps and weights.    The wood ovals swell up from the moisture in the glue and the squeeze-out gets between the boards and hold even more.  He stuff makes 2 boards are solid as one larger board.

Naturally, I forgot to take pictures (and I had my camera in my pocket)!  But I can replicate some of it to make sense of all this text.

And that is where I stopped for the day to bring some deck plants in because of the first hard freeze of the season.

More later...