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I'm about to do my first neck reset and have most of the equipment pulled together.

I made a needle and picked up a garage sale cappuccino machine. I picked up a piece of high pressure fuel line at Lowes. The temp rating was the same as their heater hose.



I did a short test of my setup. Before I go much farther here, I'll just say that I didn't let things explode and I shut it off when I saw that things were not going all that great. Initially things were working out great.

My two concerns were leaks from the needle that I made and if the hose would hold up. I let the cappuccino machine run until it was done spitting water and was shooting steam.


At this point things were looking good. I let it run like that for a bit and the hose started to balloon up. I shut the machine down and let it cool.


You can see in both of these pictures right at the needle where there is a bulge. The hose is physically fatter than it had been. I'm sure if I had let it go for mush longer that it would have split and burst a cloud of high pressure steam all over the place.

So lesson one.....Fuel line isn't the right hose.
Lesson two..... just because something is rated the same as it is for another application, don't assume it will work the same.

I headed to the auto parts stores and all they have in the 1/4" size is Fuel line. I had actually been to the auto parts stores before, but was hoping I could find some that had some out of the box suggestion. They sent me to NAPA. I went to NAPA and they had a better selection of hose, but the heater hose was only rated to 200 degrees and they didn't have any in 1/4" ID. They had some hydraulic hose which would work in all regards except that it is overkill and you cant crimp it with a hose clamp.

So I'm wondering what people are using for this. This could be one of those situations where I should have just gone straight to Stew Mac and been done with it.

I bought my hose from the local medical supply house.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Thanks Chris. Was there any specific type of hose you got? Does yours balloon up? I might be just imagining disaster that wont happen. Then again........

I bought my hose at the car parts place. Use 1/4" high temp reinforced silicone heater hose. It's rated for at least 350F and high pressure. It was like $3 something a foot.

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Another day, another dollar.

We have two steaming rigs one with a Stew-Mac hose and the other I believe that David Colins shop made it. If you still don't have an answer by Monday PM me and I will ask David where he got the hose.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Thanks Hesh, I think I've found something.

Shaw, I know I have seen stuff like that at auto parts places in the past, but here locally I didn't have any luck. Of course they don't have the big rack where the hose is out so you can look at it anymore so unless the person helping you thinks of something that will work for a non car related application, you are stuck.

I made a trip to the plumbing store and was immediately told they don't have anything. Then one guy suggested a try the "Lube Specialist" store which handles hydrolic supplies. I had no idea this store even existed.

I made my way over there and told them what I was doing and what I needed. They looked it up in a book and found something that was rated for 300 PSI @ 212 degrees F. I probably should have asked for something in the 250 range, but they had this in stock and I decided to give it a try. I like how the hose says it is fire proof right on it.


I connected everything and got the steam going.


Here we are at the 4 minute mark. The hose is hot (which I expected) but not changing shape at all. It still feels solid in my grip and hasn't done the noodle flexing like the last one.


At 5 minutes my machine was out of steam. I turned it off and things looked good. Here is a comparison of the new hose and the Fuel line. Keep in mind here that the fuel line has cooled down. It was much fatter when it was hot. I think I found a workable safe hose and have found a place that either has or can get some more sturdy stuff if I need it in the future.