# Frankengeorge - DIY Extractor



## ttc6 (Oct 31, 2017)

This is Henners. He loves it.










For a long time, I've not really known how to tackle an interior. Not properly at least. So after a long time reading, and setting it out in my mind, I decided an extractor was the way to go. And of course there's only one to buy - Henners' big bro. Problem is, George is really expensive - and there's no disputing how great a tool he is - but it's a lot of money to tie up in something which is going to spend 98% of its time idle in the garage. I've got tools to buy and old Peugeots to make faster.

Plus, I like over-thinking the solution. And building tools.

So then, next best thing. Everyone raves about the Screwfix Titan wet vac. Cheap as chips and as a (significant) benefit, comes with a blower function too. This tool is basically free.

The hose is laughable, and the supposedly 'washable' filter you can buy for it (great idea for blowing, I thought) really isn't (disintegrates like toilet paper as soon as it gets damp). Upgrade those and we're on to a winner.










How though, to properly use it to _extract _the cleaning medium from the fabric? From watching online demos, it seems the real benefit of George is his nozzle. And for water supply, I considered pump sprayers and 12v ebay diaphragm pumps, but what about that big pump in the road that I can use for free? One trip to the Numatic parts catalogue and local friendly hydraulics company later, we have a fully functioning extractor (_and _blower) for the sum total of £93.


















This thing works an absolute treat. Obligatory muddy water photo.


















Only thing is, not sure if old Henry really approves... Still, he's still smiling!










If anyone wants to know what bits I used, I'll happily write up a parts list. Everyone who has the Titan vac should do this.


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## Fentum (May 1, 2017)

ttc6 said:


> If anyone wants to know what bits I used, I'll happily write up a parts list. Everyone who has the Titan vac should do this.


Oh, yes please!

P


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## ttc6 (Oct 31, 2017)

Will do then, I'll grab some more pictures later.


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## steelghost (Aug 20, 2015)

Like it  Intrigued to know how you push the cleaning solution along the hose?


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## djberney (Oct 2, 2016)

Are you using water pressure straight from the tap? If so, how are you delivering the cleaning solution, or are you not using any?
Like you, I can't justify spending loads on something like this, even with my man maths, so this could be ideal.


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## AS_BO (Sep 29, 2013)

This is an excellent idea, been keen to see how you put it together!


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## \Rian (Aug 23, 2017)

AS_BO said:


> This is an excellent idea, been keen to see how you put it together!


I to would like to know how you deliver the cleaning solution to the material, I have taught about a pressure pump sprayer with a modified nozzle, but how are you achieving it?


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## wish wash (Aug 25, 2011)

It's a nice little mod but what you've payed for the extractor and the Titan vac you can pick up a 2nd George.


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## Cookies (Dec 10, 2008)

Fentum said:


> Oh, yes please!
> 
> P


What he said!!!

A detailed write-up would be fantastic.

Cheers

Cooks

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk


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## Andyblue (Jun 20, 2017)

Just to add to the list of yes, a write up would be great :thumb:


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## Jason123 (Feb 11, 2011)

Yes please


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## Fireball411 (Jul 31, 2016)

Also very interested on doing this


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## ttc6 (Oct 31, 2017)

wish wash said:


> It's a nice little mod but what you've payed for the extractor and the Titan vac you can pick up a 2nd George.


Just to clarify, I'm in for £93 total - including the vac. I was looking for a second hand George, but ones in good nick seem to change hands for £150-180 on ebay. Much less and you're looking at broken or missing tools, so assuming I was going to have to buy some anyway, £35 for a powerful motor with a warranty, beats an aged tatty Numatic as far as I'm concerned. I was also keen to get a blower for drying; dedicated ones start at maybe £50-60 (18v Makita, bare) up to £100+ for mains power, plus it's yet another thing to store. At worst I'm £120 saved.

I think what I have, for car cleaning in the garage at least, is actually a better solution than a George. It's a piece of cake to empty because you don't have to faff with the solution tank. In the house it would be a different story though, trailing the hosepipe inside.

On the question of getting chemicals into the hosepipe - this is something I've not done yet. So my process at the moment is to apply chemical with trigger spray, scrub as necessary, and rinse just with water. It's working really well. Saying that, I have a plan to speed things up with a cheap venturi-style metering device from ebay. The flow of water creates a vacuum in the nozzle and draws the chemical through the throttle - if it works out OK I can calibrate it up in the same manner as a foam cannon. This will be a cinch to change chemicals too, by simply dropping the pick-up tube into the relevant neat container. I'll update the thread when it arrives and I've had a play.

So on to the vac mods:

Now using the included foam filter, as the upgrade 'washable' one you can buy disintegrated on first use. Firing dust at the car doesn't seem to be a problem, but then I'll not be using this vac for dry suction.










The hose on the Titan is really poor - far too short and kinks very easily. It's nominally 32mm (same as small Numatics) and is just a friction fit into the machine. This is the insert in the end of the pipe (it just pulls out of the hose):










I bought a 2.5m repro Numatic hose for £6.75 delivered, removed the threaded collar...










...and pushed onto the Titan adaptor:










The Titan hose end is 32mm OD and the Numatic 'exhaust pipe' end 32mm ID - meaning direct fit to Numatic attachments. I went for a genuine Numatic extraction nozzle at £33; you can get repro ones for £15-20 but I feel this is the most important part of the operation and the saving wasn't worth it.

George's water supply uses Rectus 21 quick connectors, the type favoured by small bore window cleaning setups and freely available on ebay. This is the male end I removed from the nozzle:










In the interests of speed (the local hydraulics place don't stock the Rectus connector), I replaced this with a 1/4" BSP 6mm hose tail (80p). The thread is parallel and sealed with an o-ring.










6mm braided PVC hose such as this at 79p/m. Plus a couple of Jubilees.

I'm using Geka couplings in my hosepipe, because they're more versatile and robust than the Hozelock type:










The coupling interface is a standard size regardless of the size of the hose to be connected. So no problem stepping from my 3/4" garden hose down to the 6mm. So in this case I have a 1/2" BSPP female fitting (you can see the sealing ring in the first picture below), connected to a 1/2-1/4 M-F reducer (£1.36), connected to a 1/4 6mm hose tail (£1.24). The threads at this interface are tapered and sealed with PTFE. The 1/2" thread is parallel as the hydraulics place had a parallel to tapered adapter, but a tapered thread such as the one I've linked should work fine in the Geka connector.


























Needless to say if you buy the fittings all from ebay it'll cost a lot more than it needs to, and the benefit of a trade counter is that they can make it all up on the spot, and do you a cheeky discount...

Vac £35
Nozzle £33
Vac Hose £7
Water Hose £7
Other fittings and VAT £11

Job done.

Hope that helps!

It really was quite simple. Have tackled some minging carpet mats with it so far to great effect. BH Surfex applied at 10:1, scrubbed with a nail brush, and liberally rinsed through with water. You can see the rinse water coming clean (and sud-less) through the nozzle, which really helps target the problem areas. Pretty much dry as soon as you've finished - I reckon an hour with the AC on would dry an interior out pretty well after this treatment. I have a dirty cloth interior to tackle soon, can't wait!


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## Fireball411 (Jul 31, 2016)

ttc6 said:


> Just to clarify, I'm in for £93 total - including the vac. I was looking for a second hand George, but ones in good nick seem to change hands for £150-180 on ebay. Much less and you're looking at broken or missing tools, so assuming I was going to have to buy some anyway, £35 for a powerful motor with a warranty, beats an aged tatty Numatic as far as I'm concerned. I was also keen to get a blower for drying; dedicated ones start at maybe £50-60 (18v Makita, bare) up to £100+ for mains power, plus it's yet another thing to store. At worst I'm £120 saved.
> 
> I think what I have, for car cleaning in the garage at least, is actually a better solution than a George. It's a piece of cake to empty because you don't have to faff with the solution tank. In the house it would be a different story though, trailing the hosepipe inside.
> 
> ...


Can this be done with out the water hose if I just use a spray bottle for that function?


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## ttc6 (Oct 31, 2017)

Fireball411 said:


> Can this be done with out the water hose if I just use a spray bottle for that function?


Well, kind of, but there would be no benefit to having the Numatic nozzle in that case. I presume you're thinking:

Hand spray shampoo
Agitate
Hand spray water
Vac

In which case, you could just use the Titan straight out of the box. You need a lot of water to rinse the fabric through though, which is where a setup like this really excels. You don't want to be leaving half dried up product in the fabric really.

Unless you're thinking along the lines of a pump sprayer to rinse out?


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## Fireball411 (Jul 31, 2016)

ttc6 said:


> Well, kind of, but there would be no benefit to having the Numatic nozzle in that case. I presume you're thinking:
> 
> Hand spray shampoo
> 
> ...


Ah yes of course,I've never done wet vac as it always been to much outlay for little back,but this set up looks good


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## ttc6 (Oct 31, 2017)

Fireball411 said:


> Ah yes of course,I've never done wet vac as it always been to much outlay for little back,but this set up looks good


Me neither before I bought this, but it all makes sense once you've done it. There's plenty of videos of people demonstrating George on Youtube, bit sad maybe, but worth a watch to get a feel for how these things work before you commit to buying one.


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## Fireball411 (Jul 31, 2016)

ttc6 said:


> Just to clarify, I'm in for £93 total - including the vac. I was looking for a second hand George, but ones in good nick seem to change hands for £150-180 on ebay. Much less and you're looking at broken or missing tools, so assuming I was going to have to buy some anyway, £35 for a powerful motor with a warranty, beats an aged tatty Numatic as far as I'm concerned. I was also keen to get a blower for drying; dedicated ones start at maybe £50-60 (18v Makita, bare) up to £100+ for mains power, plus it's yet another thing to store. At worst I'm £120 saved.
> 
> I think what I have, for car cleaning in the garage at least, is actually a better solution than a George. It's a piece of cake to empty because you don't have to faff with the solution tank. In the house it would be a different story though, trailing the hosepipe inside.
> 
> ...


Any idea how to use hozelock connectors on the tap end?

Love the look of the geka ones,but most people I visit have the hozelock type connections

I'm going to get the geka for home tho,as the ones I have drip loads


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## ttc6 (Oct 31, 2017)

Fireball411 said:


> Any idea how to use hozelock connectors on the tap end?
> 
> Love the look of the geka ones,but most people I visit have the hozelock type connections
> 
> I'm going to get the geka for home tho,as the ones I have drip loads


Sorry, missed this first time round! Better late than never I suppose...

I'd probably make up a short run of standard 1/2" garden hose with a female Hozelock on one end and a male hose tail Geka on the other.

By means of actually updating the thread. My irrigation chemical device arrived. Ages ago. It works pretty well, just haven't had the chance to hook it up in a permanent fashion yet. Here is a video of the machine working with plain water:


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## BarryAllen (Feb 3, 2017)

ttc6 said:


> Well, kind of, but there would be no benefit to having the Numatic nozzle in that case. I presume you're thinking:
> 
> Hand spray shampoo
> Agitate
> ...


Thread revival.

Dried up product in fabric ? Is that an issue ? I use vax upholstery cleaner. £8 a bottle, dilutes at 20:1 and the vax machine just washes it through the top layer and extracts.... never 100% dry.

So that must be leaving some product in the fabric. No instructions to rinse.

Just intrigued why this might be a problem?


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## Tykebike (Mar 27, 2016)

+1 on Geka fittings much better than all the different variants of the Hozelock types I've tried. The only downside is that you must ensure there is no pressure in the line to be able to disconnect them as even a slight weep from a worn tap washer can make is next to impossible to disconnect at the coupling.
The best thing though is that there is less of a pressure drop than with the Hozelock type.


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## ttc6 (Oct 31, 2017)

BarryAllen said:


> Thread revival.
> 
> Dried up product in fabric ? Is that an issue ? I use vax upholstery cleaner. £8 a bottle, dilutes at 20:1 and the vax machine just washes it through the top layer and extracts.... never 100% dry.
> 
> ...


Probably needed reviving to be honest...

I suppose it depends what you use. I've never used a dedicated upholstery cleaner as such - just an APC diluted to suit the task at hand. I have found that if this isn't rinsed out properly it can leave a sticky residue behind which just seems to attract more dirt.

I presume that if the product you're using is specifically designed to be left in the fabric as it were, (used in the rinse water, whatever) either it evaporates or dries in a benign fashion. I had planned to use a specific rinse product in the water (hence the cheap hosepipe irrigation device I mentioned), but so far I've not found it necessary.



Tykebike said:


> +1 on Geka fittings much better than all the different variants of the Hozelock types I've tried. The only downside is that you must ensure there is no pressure in the line to be able to disconnect them as even a slight weep from a worn tap washer can make is next to impossible to disconnect at the coupling.
> The best thing though is that there is less of a pressure drop than with the Hozelock type.


True, wish someone had told me this before I bought them! Next to impossible is the phrase. I've taken to briefly running the PW dry in order to pull a slight vacuum on the hose in order to disconnect it. I mean, they're lovely and all, but I'm hardly running a business... think I may have gone slightly OTT with them.


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## matt1122 (Aug 3, 2019)

djberney said:


> Are you using water pressure straight from the tap? If so, how are you delivering the cleaning solution, or are you not using any?
> 
> Like you, I can't justify spending loads on something like this, even with my man maths, so this could be ideal.


I've done it but connected it to a pressure sprayer to push apc through

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