Last week Paul showed me some of the new 1 way valve jars he had been making,
using Lock & Lock food plastic food containers (with a gasket in the top so
they are air and water tight. I was quite impressed and we took some photos of
them being made and of course improved our technique still further.
These are definitely a big improvement on my "jam jar" designs in a number of
areas. in the first place I now realise I was "overthinking" the whole jam jar
manufacturing method and using complex techniques like hot melt glue guns
:shock: In fact the glue is like rubber and the valves can easily
become dislodged and it's hard to make joints airtight. The Lock & Lock
containers have the advantage of being simple, cheap, washable, reusable and as
we will see later, require only the minimum of tools.
For those who want to try making some, the "manufacturing" process is quite
easy.
Tools required
But with the improvements to the manufacturing process we will need a lot
less tools as you will see later.
Procedure
Make Pilot hole (using pointy thing)
They're tougher than they look (it was actually the wrong sort of drillbit,
but more about this later)
The sandals are optional ;)
Ream hole out to exact size to take valve body (using scissors)
Stick it on with Sticky tape. Now why didn't I think of that! We all know
that the stuff sticks to anything and once it's been on a few days is nearly
impossible to get off; quick, easy and very effective.
Voila!
Ok so far so good, but I couldn't help myself in wanting to make this process
easier and use less tools. It seemed to me that we could make 2 changes to
achieve this
1. Use a cheapo wood bit (rather than the expensive one Paul had), funnily
enough the cheap one would actually make the hole by hand in the lid. NO drill
required, just twist it around.
2. make a SMALLER hole and tape the valve in on the inside
Drill that hole by hand. OK it's staged, because the only picture I had was
of Paul trying this with the expensive drill, but "honest" the cheap one will
drill a hole like this (I did it by hand no problem)
The underside of the lid, because we no longer stick the valve on the top.
Cut the valve leaving a square surround of foil (it's easier to get a seal using
only 4 pieces of sticky tape, cutting a round circle of foil although nice
looking, is actually harder to seal)
The finished product....note how the hole is a lot smaller, because it only
needs to be large enough not to obstruct the air holes in the valve (it doesn't
need to accomodate the valve body now). We used a 14mm cheap as chips wood drill
bit, which is just visible in the picture..
