Inventive Connectors

[Brad]

Hi all,

I'm thinking of making a screen out of dowling rods and material, which would have separate sections. Something like -

----- | | | | ----- | | | | | | | | -----

Sides & middle bar being dowling rods and the top/bottom simply being material.

But I can't think of anything suitable for the T connectors in the middle, or where to look for them. Closest thing I can think of are those connectors you get in kite kits but haven't seen one of those for years.

Any ideas? Don't mind if they are plastic or metal, although I'd like to try and keep the dowling rods smallish so size is the main requirement.

Thanks,

Brad

[Wellard]

What size diameter are the rods, if half inch pop along to your local plumbers merchant and get a couple of T joints.

G

[John Rumm]

How about an "equal tee" of the plumbing variety? You can get them for microbore pipe in 6, 8, and 10mm diameter.

[Peter Parry]

I once saw something similar made out of standard radio frequency coaxial cable components - mainly TNC connectors.

pictures.

The connectors are bright plated and the cable end was drilled out to take the rods. T pieces are available and the result was quite smart.

Connector costs are about £3 each from

[stefek.zaba]

Now there's an idea. If you know someone who works at a medium-or-large size IT installation, and has any responsibility for the networks or at least happy access to the back of the cupboards where previously-very-useful but now-obsolete stuff has been squirrelled away, you may find it easy to get shiny T-pieces of approx. 12mm outside diameter. Coax T-pieces were all the rage in 10Base2 wiring some, what, 10-15 years back, before twisted-pair wiring became all the rage. (Hell, if the OP only wants a couple, I expect I can oblige ;-). Drilling out the guts neatly should be simple.

But that's only the T-pieces; unfortunately there was very little call for simple 90-degree pieces for this networking scheme. 'F' pieces - yes, but much rarer than T-pieces. Simple elbows - scarcely ever (vaguely conceivable that Black Box would've flogged them for 15quid a time to let you push your PC an extra half-inch closer to the wall ;-)

HTH, Stefek

[RichardS]

previously-very-useful

More of an AMP-Tap man myself....

Those were the days. Got myself out of no end of real work sorting out downed segment faults.... (everyone else thought it a black art).

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

[Michael McNeil]

"Shitforbrains" wrote

Or superglue and those special screws used for endgrain.

[mark]

Could have a look at the plastic tubing connectors B&Q do? They are clear/white and in different diameters as well.

The nearest to Kite connectors would be a few isles up in the garden irrigation section, they are black plastic.

With both if they were too small you could always buy some tubing cut it into small pieces and then put your dowelling into the tubing?

Why aren't all my problems this straightforward. ;-)

Mark S.