The Macguyver Valve

[Turtle]

A good friend of mine (who shall hereafter be referred to as the Smoking Kobold, or TSK) recently picked up a hookah from hookah kings. this Hookah is TSK's first, and we found out the hard way the image is misleading. This hookah has two hose stems branching of from the main stem, and in lieu of a proper valve, one of the hoses has a rubber stopper (that's right, the hose itself, as opposed to a simple plug for the stem) for sealing and unsealing for one hose use.

TSK did not like this, so one early morning (around 2:30 a.m.0 we got together, and Macguyvered our own valve together (yay us!). I figured I'd share with you guys, either for your education or amusement. Pardon the quality of the pictures, a webcam was used...


Image One: The Stem (Not much to se here, [except TSK's manga collection] just an example of the difference in what is shown and what was got)





Image Two: The beginnings of the MacGuyver valve



We used one of those plastic mouthpieces that comes wiht the hookah,
as well as a stem grommet.

image three: MV, step one



fairly simple, just stick the mouthpiece into the grommet like so.
We used foil to layer up the mouthpiece so the fit was snug and
fairly tight.

Image Four: MV step two



Pardon the blurry shot... for this step, we simply rolled a
bit of foil into a ball, and packed it as far into the mouth-
piece as far as it would go. Our ball was big enough to seal
when we inhaled through the hose, but light enough to be
lifted gently when we need to purge the icky smoke and gain
the nummy variety.

Image Five: The finished product



foil was wrapped about the grommet, and smoothed taut.
Holes were then punched to allow smoke to escape but
keep the little ball from shooting across the room (I
don't recall how many times we had to chase that damn
ball before we thought of that solution).

Anyway, we had a lot of fun making this thing, and in all
honesty, it works good, not excellent, but then, the hookah
itself wasn't the best quality. TSK has no complaints about the
valve, in his words "It's awesome"

[Akkbar]

sweet valve. props.

[TheSmokingKobold]

Yes, that was quite an invention. And yes, I just registered. Looking foward to getting to know the community.

[Lakemonster]

Nice!

Now take your concept top Home Depot and scrounge up what you need to make something more permanent.



or this