Saturday, April 21, 2012

MAN CRAFT: Hand washing machine tutorial

Well, with a baby on the horizon, we have to think about diapers.  We are cloth diapering, which means lots and lots of laundry.  However, our current living situation calls for coin-op laundry machines.  Ew to spending money.

So we looked at hand crank machines such as the Wonder Wash, but we weren't totally excited to cough up 50-60 bucks for one.  So my genius husband went to Lowe's and figured it out for himself!



So now, I am going to attempt to explain what he did.
 Supplies:
5 gallon Bucket
Drill
Paint stirry thing aka mortar mixer
PVC pipe
various PVC connectors

First, he drilled a hole in the bucket to fit the mortar mixer.

 Then he used E6000 glue to affix a PVC endcap to the bottom of the bucket.  This helps keep the stirry thing off the bottom, which allows for more agitation and keeps the mortar mixer in place.

The next few pictures show how he used the PVC bits to make a handle for the mortar mixer.  He used E6000 glue to attach it all together.


For ease of stirring, he put some bigger PVC pieces around the handle.  

Now, how do you use it?  We tested this device on some pretty gnarly stains, and found the best method is 1 wash with 2 or 3 rinses.  Agitation is best done by turning the handle back and forth 180 degrees for about 5 minutes.  Yes, it is a workout, but it will save us a TON in quarters!



3 comments:

pink rose forklift said...

LOVE it!! :)

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing-I have all of these supplies just sitting around! Perfect.

Unknown said...

Great Idea! I think I would just skip the making of the handle, and use the stirry thingy (aka mortar mixer)and the bucket with it's lid, just as you described here. Then I would just use my drill on the stirry thing... first going forward then backward over and over until the clothes are agitated enough to be clean. But then I guess I am lazier than you are LOL!
Thanks for the great info!