Hands Free Shower

What is a "twistim".. ???, justt curious....Happytrails, I  recently found out what a honeypot is myself, after purchasing our TM...
Red

You can find "twistems" on plastic bread bags or they are used to seal garbage bags. They are a piece of wire encased in a strip of paper or strip of plastic, usually two or three inches long. I found some that were about eight inches long to make my no cost hands free shower head holder.

Oh, but Hal's hands free shower version posted on this site is soooo slick. I built mine last night. Very cool and useful accessory.

Wade

Thank you Gene  ;D....I put together Hal's unit, but itgot broken. I wanted to try your version, but the twistem thingy had me all confused  : ......I thought it was some sort of bendable coil or something like that. I even looked for it at Walmart! ..... duhhhh.
Red

I'm building Hal's hand's free shower as well!  Had to reglue with Goop after my first attempt with model glue didn't hold.

At this point, I'm not considering replacing the curtains as Hal's brochure suggested. (If I could sew or my wife would sew, I'd consider it!)  Anyone just cut some slits in the original curtain?  Any problems with leakage?  How did you resolve it?

We're really looking forward to trying the shower out in 2 weeks!

Gary

Gary, the purpose of replacing the curtain is due to the fact the earlier TMs had curtains that were of a plastic material.  It seems that it took forever for the water to shed and dry when on this material.  The curtain was still wet when we were ready to travel the next  a.m. and if the top if lowered, the curtain lays on the rear bed, thus creating a very wet surprise for the next evening.  We found that Polyesther was dry the next morning.  It could be that the more recent TMs have switched to polyesther.  We have seen a few later models that did have curtains of this material.  

If your TM has the original plastic, it is worth your while to replace it.  There is nothing like sleeping in a damp bed.  By the way, I hope the directions for tailoring the curtains didn't make the replacement seem too difficult.  You simply sew two curtains together, cut "darts out of each of the four corners and sew the corners back together.  Otherwise you have a tub full of curtain material

Hurry and get that shower device made.  You will love it.

Hal

Curtains in new TMs are nylon, so should dry pretty quick. I still need to trim them up to remove excess material. I personally built the portable hanging shower device and absolutely love it!  

I used epoxy to glue the shower holder when I  made mine.  We absolutely love it!  It makes showering almost as convenient as it is at home.  That will be one of the best "modifications" you can make.

The nylon curtains that I have are great - they dry our pretty fast.  I've toyed with shortening them, but I'm almost afraid I would make them  too short and allow water out of the shower.  Right now, they kind of "drag" at the bottom of the tub.  Anyone shorten their curtains?  Luck with that?

Much of the tailoring to our curtains was to get rid of the excess ends that will literally fill your tub.  Being that the shower area is much broader than the tub, The curtains at the feet will be forced to conform to the  dimensions of the tub.  This excess got in our way and made the shower seem even smaller.  We fit the bottom portion of the curtain to the dimensions of our tub then removed material from each corner.  Each corner was then restitched.  

As to shortening the curtains, I don’t think we had to shorten ours.  We did fold the bottom edge outward and sewed it together to make a casing (ask your wife what a casing is) through which we ran a weight rope.  A weight rope is a string of 1/4” metal balls (lead? non rusting?) that due their weight and the force of gravity will keep the curtains in place.  Their downward pull will help close the opening and thus prevent water spraying through. The amount of fold in this casing could help you tailor the length of the curtain so that it is just the right length.  We didn’t wish for the curtains to drag on the bottom of the tub.  Being that the curtains do originally reach the bottom, they could be shortened to about two or three inches from the bottom.  

Our final move was to place matching velcro (hooks and loops) in four places.  
     2 pieces across the top to hold the curtain together
     1 piece about four inches down from the top
     1 piece about door knob height to keep the curtain together.
You could add more if you like but due to the effect of the rope weights haven’t found any more to be necessary.

We also attached matchiing pieces of velcro to the side walls. Each piece is to hold the curtain to drape  open (just like in the movie Gone with the Wind)  to air out the shower and curtain.  To place these pieces precisely on the walls, you swing the curtain open and toward the wall.  Where the door knob piece of velcro touches the wall, that is where you put a matching piece of velcro.  This is all spelled out in our brouchure

As another option to the  "hanging hands-free-shower," I attached a steel mending plate to the exterior wall above the shower.

Then all I have to do is take my extra shower holder (which I expoxied to a big magnet) and stick it into place.

The height is adjustable (+/- a few inches), it is quite small, and easy to set up.  The mending plate is very flat and doesn't interfere with set-up or takedown.

A good source for the maget is a welding store.  You can purchase a large "grounding" magnet and remove the grounding bolt from the center.

I can take pictures if anyone needs a visual...