Air / torch hose reels

Giving up on finding what I wanted and what would fit where I needed to put it, I decided to just make one myself. I had picked up some cord reels from a military surplus sale years back with the intention of using them for storing welding leads. I never got around to doing anything with this idea and they got tossed into storage and forgot about. Getting my mind set on the hose reels, I dug these out and started looking for a swivel coupling to use for the supply. Went to the local hydraulic hose place and got a new high quality 1/2" npt swivel for $25. The cord reels were built to fit onto some sort of existing shaft with a spline type drive on one end. This lead to a problem with using a pipe for the shaft. I cured this by welding double thick hard steel flat washers to each side of the 1.250" shaft tube. To the washers, I welded a 1/2" steel pipe coupling. I used 2" x 1/4" steel bar stock for the shaft supports and attached a piece of 3/4" thick teflon pillow block bearing material to each side. I drilled the teflon blocks to tightly fit the OD of the pipe couplings which are now the shaft for the reel. One coupling got a pipe plug and the other got the swivel fitting that is hard piped into the air line from the truck compressor. I put a handle for hand crank re-wind on the side opposite the swivel fitting. To prevent the hose coupling from getting crud in it, I installed a dummy connector to the truck body to plug it onto. To eliminate the possibility of the hose unwinding from the reel while road traveling, I drilled a hole in the mounting bracket for a pin that latches the reel in place. Total cost was about 50 bucks and two hours time but I have a reel that's the right size and shape to fit where I wanted it and will easily hold 250' of hose if I desire to get that carried away.

I'm still looking at torch hose reels but have yet to find what I need in these as well. Most of the problem is physical size and shape. Need to fit it into a compartment. Seems as these twin hose reels are designed narrower and larger in diameter than air or water hose reels. I found I can buy very high quality swivels for the O2/LP gases for around $75 each from the same local supplier. I forsee myself shortly building this hose reel as well. Will let you know how it turns out. Yes, I have ensured that the swivel fittings I am going to use for the torch hose are in fact explosion proof and approved for this use for the gases and pressures required.

Could you post a couple of photos of the reel you made up...It would be interesting to see and be able to corrolate photo to text. Thanks and Good Luck
Tom-Pa

50 footers won't cut it for me. Many of the places I work, I need at least 100' of hose to reach. When I do work in the coal plant, I need at least 200' to reach the upper areas of the feed cyclones. Same for road service, many times I have to park behind the broken truck and have to clear 28' of my own truck plus another 53' of trailer before getting to the power unit.

In either case, I'd rather have all the hose connected and ready to work when I need it. Going with a 200' reel is the only way to keep everything handy and ready to go without taking up a lot of valuable compartment space. The truck I'm working with was originally built for an electric power utility. It worked out well for what I wanted but now I'm adding the little changes to make it more efficient. The torch hose reel will be installed in what was formerly the crew cab portion of the utility body (not part of the passenger compartment). I have the Miller Trailblazer in there and have plenty of room above it for the reel where it'll be out of the way but still easy access.

I know exactly how I want to build it so that it'll hold 200' of twin lead hose. I had some reservations about the swivels I first found, did not seem to be as well made as I would have liked. I did find ones that come with the proper RH/LH thread connection for torch hose so I won't need adapters reducing the risk of leaks. They also have three separate seals in the rotating portion to further reduce the possibility of leaks. They cost around 75 bucks more each than the other ones but are far better quality. I'm not really going to be saving any money building my own reel, it's now a point of building what I need and want rather than anything.

I get the local DOT inspector to give my truck a full inspection and put the window sticker on it. He knows my work yet he still does a complete and full inspection of everything, top to bottom and end to end so there is no questions on anything. After all, this is also my show truck so I keep it spotless, shined up and very neat...wish I could say the same for the shop... he he

Never had any trouble with any of the DOT people. I run the scales a lot, sometimes once going north and once going south in the same day a few hours apart. Since I re-built the entire truck, I changed a lot things from wiring to hydraulic hoses and so forth. All of the wiring is done in PVC and liquid-tite conduit and there are no exposed wires anywhere. All the hydraulic hoses and air lines are run in PVC pipe along the frame and where they are exposed are wrapped with abrasion protectors. Every time I got inspected, it ended with getting compliments from the DOT people on how well everything was done on the truck so I doubt they will have any problems with my hose reels not being production models.