Sprinkler Spike Base

I don’t know if this will help anyone, but I take a shot at it.  Some one might add “a long one with a limb in the way.”  I didn’t get much work done in the studio today because I had to run some errands and then do some fall yard work.  Some of the yard work was watering newly seeded lawn areas.  In Kansas, it seems we have to repair some areas of our lawns in the fall every year if we want them to look good after the ravages of summer.

So, to the point.  I was watering and noticed that I have, over time, made some helpful modifications to my tools with a blacksmith orientation.  This is the sprinkler retrospective.  First, I bought a standard lawn sprinkler at a local store and set it up.  I am fortunate to have very good water pressure, but the downside is that the pressure caused the sprinkler to flip over on it’s side and spray a tunnel into the ground or up into the air.  One of my granddaughters would call this the “dead bug” position.

I countered that problem by fabricating a base attachment with four forged spikes about 6” long which I could stomp into the ground and there was no way the sprinkler could flip over.  

It seems I’m not often willing to leave well enough alone and just say “It’s good enough.”  It didn’t take long before I came up with the idea of adding the tall handle so I didn’t have to bend over to move the sprinkler.  I was already using “hairpin bend leaf’ finial type stakes in my garden, so I welded one of those onto the base.  It worked beautifully and eliminated the stooping and bending effort.  

Next came the idea of turning the hairpin bend into a horizontal loop which would be a socket to hold a twist nozzle.  Sometimes I just rely on the sprinkler to do area watering and sometimes I use the twist nozzle to do more precisely targeted watering.  This accommodated both.  I guess my brain burned out at that point since I have made no further modifications.

I have noticed another potential benefit of putting a handle on the frame.  It assures that the sprinkler cannot tip over with the spikes pointed upward which could be a deadly hazard.

This is a special which has worked well for me.  I worry about things with sharp points and use this sprinkler cautiously.  I don’t sell it or recommend it for anyone else to use.  I hope that someone will come up with the next better version - Spiked-long handled sprinkler 2.0.