The Hose Reel: Pipe Rims, a Spider and a Handle That Becomes a Stand

The reel's two sides are each made "of a single piece of pipe", a gas-pipe bent into a circle, joined by angular arms, one of which carries "the cleat" "to receive or fasten the end of the hose." The handle "is free to swing or turn over about the axle or axis of the reel", with a bent foot-brace. "When the hose is reeled and fastened at the cleat, the handle E is turned over about the axis of the reel to the opposite side of said axis, which throws the brace F above the circular sections A A and puts the reel in condition for wheeling away. To reel up the hose, the handle E and brace F are turned so that both rest upon the ground and hoist the reel up from the ground". "This allows the reel to be freely rotated to reel up the hose." The handle and brace "may be made of gaspipe to maintain or contribute to the general lightness of the reel and its cheapness and facility of construction."

Measure your hose's length with a tape and its outside diameter with the caliper, and put them into the notebook with your reel's sizes. Fill the hose, close both ends, and weigh one coil of it on the kitchen scale; drain it into a measuring jug and weigh it again. Work out the water per metre and compare with the notebook's figure for the whole hose. Reel it both full and drained and note the difference.

**Reuben D. Wirt** of Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, filed US 366,909 on 18 May 1887; it is dated 19 July 1887. It improves on his own hose-reel patent, US 358,953 of 8 March 1887. **Honest limits.** The capacity formula treats hose as a neat bundle of round tubes; real winding is loose and uneven. Sizes and the packing factor are examples. Your tape, caliper and scale readings are the measurement.