MAINTENANCE Mary C. Gannon • Editor
Tool ensures easy maintenance for hose and fitting changeovers Assembling Push-Lok style hose and fittings can
Weighing just 1.9 lb, the tool is portable and lightweight for easy field-service repairs but is rugged enough for repetitive be a tedious, time-consuming and sometimes even unsafe task. And if production applications. It is an ideal tool for many manufacturers the hose and fitting assemblies are not assembled correctly, their use that are currently retooling their plants to respond to critical could lead to potential dangerous applications down the road. COVID-19 needs by now manufacturing medical devices, face masks and more, said Karl Wagner, Founder of Barb-Tech Tools. Wagner said Push-Lok is used in many types of industries and A new tool, the Barb-Tech II, easily assembles Push-Lok style hose heavily in automation, medical device design and pharmaceutical and fittings from 1⁄4 to ¾ in. ID. It works with a variety of fittings and and lab testing. Common applications include plastics and compatible barbed fittings using a changeable mandrel system. injection molding. The tool is designed for low pressure The device uses a cleat-style hose grip on a lightweight applications — like pneumatics, water and low-pressure oil lines — hand operated system that produces up to 300 psi of fitting and is suited particularly well to applications where line changeinsertion force, which is ideal for pneumatic assemblies and hose outs are made frequently. assemblies for low-pressure designs. This force reduces the force The device features a mandrel at one end to hold the fittings required by the operator by one-third. The device also prevents and jaw-like clamps at the other end. Pushing a lever pushes the over-bent wrists, an injury common to Push-Lok hose assembly. fitting into the hose, while the jaw-clamps tightly hold the hose secure as the fitting is pushed into the hose. The idea for Barb-Tech Tools came to Wagner when he was working in a cold warehouse and with spools of hose and boxes of fittings. He was expected to assemble them all by hand. “And the other end of the hose may have already been hooked up to something. I needed something that I could just walk over, and push this fitting in,” he said. “I couldn’t take it off and go someplace warm. To have something really portable that you can just take to the job site was really key for making a product that worked for the industry. And I’ve actually had people call, ‘Well, I got a maintenance guy, he’s trying to repair hoses up on a ladder. This fits the bill for what they need in a situation like that.” Wagner designed mandrels for 90° and 45° fittings because they are especially difficult to assemble by hand without good leverage. “The key with the Push-Lok design is you have to Barb-Tech II tools feature a mandrel at one end to hold the fittings and be able to get a really straight push on the axes of jaw-like clamps at the other end to quickly push the fitting into the hose. | All images Barb-Tech Tools
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FLUID POWER WORLD
4 • 2020
www.fluidpowerworld.com
