Beefed up the Diameter of my "Neuman", what do you call your Tool

I decided it was about time to beef up the ropes on my "Mr. Neuman's Invention" cleaning contraption. Bought this out of Mother Earth News back in the early 80's. It actually works pretty good on my 12" square chimney (10.5" interior). I have been using that old thinner poly rope for over 30 years checking it for fray all the time, but I figured it was time to move on to something beefier. This new poly should work very nice. Chain is the ultimate way to go but good rope works fine.

I was thinking of moving to a rod system, I can only clean it from the top down. Its about 35' tall and I always have a spot build up heavily about 8-12' up from its 8" round inlet in the basement.

What are you folks favorite cleaning "tools" these days?

 

Quite the contraption you found there.

I use a boring old brush and rods.

 

Me too!

 

Boog

What sort of boat is that? A Whaler? It looks a bit too deep in the center sponson to be a 17, but I can't really get a good angle on it.

 

Sooteater! Ftw!

 

x2

 

Yup, a 1962 Sakonnet 16' that I have been restoring/pimping out. It came from NJ and superficially didn't look too bad. My brother first bought it as project, then gave it to me, I should have just took it to the landfill instead! It was that bad with stress & spider cracks everywhere, wet foam, corroded central tube. Drilled 16 holes through the bottom of the hull that I stuck "paper towel wicks" into and dried out the foam over two years. Snaked a flexible 3" tube inside the corroded 4" one and fiberglassed that up snug. Patched cracked areas, holes, impact rings, etc. and re-clothed the entire exterior with 10 oz fiberglass cloth overlapping all the edges. Added a wood deck in the front and wide side rails/splash rails on the sides. Fiberglassed over all the wood. High build epoxy primer on outside at this stage to be painted, didn't go gel-coat. Layered up the floor and the lower sides a bit on the inside to strengthen them. Still a lot of work to do but she will ride again and be set up for great lakes fishing with a 60-70 HP on it, its rated for 50-100. I havn't done much on it this year other than a little sanding. I did pour concrete under it though!

 

That thing looks like a contraption from the Red Green show. For a second, I thought that was Harold on the box. It does look like it would've worked well with my old setup.

This year, I fastened a bunch of zip ties to my old chimney rod spoking out from the center. This was my first year with a liner and I figured I'd just rig something up until I decide what to buy. It worked better than I expected.

 

Wow Boog, that's a lot of time consuming work right there. Looks great... well done!

 

How to flip a Whaler by yourself! I gutted out the half rotted Sakonnet interior for starters. I'm going to put a fiberglass console back in it. Removing 4 layers of toxic bottom paint and barnacle remnants is how all the serious work began!

 

Boog Very nice!

I don't envy you the fiberglass work though. Give me metal or wood every time!

 

I'm gonna say that contraption looks like a "Medieval torchure device.................or something to clean stone/brick lined fireplace chimneys. I would think; that'd be pretty hard on a clay tile lined chimney............unless those rods a quite flexible.

 

"Beefed up the Diameter of my "Neuman", what do you call your Tool"
Uh, not quite sure how to answer that......

 

No one has been brave enough to go for it yet.

Its somewhat flexible, but I do worry about it knocking out the mortar between my ceramic liners.

 

You don't know how long it took me to think up that suggestive title.

 

A damm slacker!

 

I bought the same thing back in the 80's and think it's great. I also have the yellow plastic on it from way back then. I'm thinking its a good thing to change it out, no?

 

It is treatable you know.

Greg

 

I'd pull hard on it a few times and see if it still seems firm enough to get the job done. You would hate to have your tool get stuck down that shaft. Or is it your shaft stuck down that tool ......................... I'm getting confused now! Probably just better thicken up your diameter too!