Lawn Sprinkler enthusiasts

[petek]

I found this vintage Melnor Traveling lawn sprinkler some time last years iirc curbside and put it away. Well today I got it out and decided test it out and hooray it works. It moves along and winds up the hose at about 1 foot every 10 minutes. Very cool. I remember seeing these quite often as a kid but they haven't made them in quite a number of years. Too bad. I also have the Craftsman version of the travelling tractor sprinkler. They don't make those anymore either, at least not the heavy metal ones. I put a video on my FB page

 

[whirlcool]

We had a cast iron Melnor sprinkler at our last house. You laid the hose out and the sprinkler followed the hose back to the house where there was a special turn off valve. When the sprinkler ran into the valve it would turn the water off. The sprinkler itself looked like a green tractor and it was heavy. But when the dogs would play with it they'd knock it off it's track (the hose).

When we moved we left it at the house for the next people who we sold the house to.

 

[philcobendixduo]

Tractor Sprinklers and my favorite from yesteryear

I was fascinated by those traveling "tractor sprinklers" when I was a lad in Nebraska. A couple of neighbors had them and oh how I envied them! Our family had a really cool sprinkler from Sears (Craftsman, as I recall) that was a "do everything" sprinkler. It was a rotary sprinkler that had two arms with adjustable "jets" at each end. In addition, there was a dial in the center of the arm assembly that allowed various spray patterns to be selected (just from the ends of the arms, though the center of the arm assembly, etc., and MOST exciting - the setting called "everything"! There was also a metal "swing up" arm that kept the arm assembly from spinning for narrow areas of watering. Alas, as neighborhood girl fell on it while running in the sprinkler on a hot day and broke off one of the arms ending it's life. The base of the sprinkler was white, as I recall (metal) and the arm assembly was black plastic.

 

[luxflairguy]

Walking sprinklers

I collect sprinklers now more than vacuums and love my Melnor walker like the one pictured. I also have the sprinkler philco just mentioned. Made by Nelson sprinklers who of course made it for Sears, it's called the "Sky Jet." 5 different settings. Fun to play with. But not too efficient. I mostly collect Rain King sprinklers, which most know became part of the Sunbeam Corp. I have most models, but of course my favorite is the K-20 walker which reels in a metal tape as it travels. You can't make it follow any pattern except straight. Still love it, though.
Now if I had a couple of acres, out would come some of the gold course sprinklers!
Greg

 

[danemodsandy]

I'd Love to Find....

One of those all-metal traveling Melnors.

Here in the upper Midwest, built-in sprinkler systems aren't too practical, due to Old Man Winter freezing the bejabbers out of everything for months at a stretch.

But a traveling Melnor would automate the watering task pretty well, at a reasonable cost.

 

[kb0nes]

National Walking Sprinkler

For anyone looking for a walking sprinkler that just works, look at the National Walking Sprinkler models (www.nationalwalkingsprinkler.com)

My coworker bought the A5 model a few years ago and its built like a tank.

They aren't vintage, although the design appears to be. In 30 or 40 years they will be vintage, and I'd bet they will still dragging the hose around!

 

[petek]

You used to be able to by the Melnor tractors at TSC in the John Deere color scheme and Sears in Craftsman. They were pricey though and that's probably why the stopped making them. I found mine at Liquidation World here (Big Lots) clearing them out at about $25 a pop a few years ago so I bought 3 and kept one. This vintage reel model doesn't shut off like they do when it reaches the end so you have to watch it or put a timer on the faucet.
We have a sand point well and underground sprinkler system in the backyard. There were never any sprinklers put in the front, just a faucet on each end of the house which is hooked up to it. Eventually I'll have it expanded to the front but not in any rush.

 

[iheartmaytag]

Melnor"

Still makes the tractor.  It isn't "all" metal any longer.   The body is heavy metal, but the transmission is plastic.  I have one, and love it.  

 

Mine will run the hose as you lay it out and you can put a ramp at the end and the water will shut off.  It doesn't do me that much for auto shut off, because I use it on the well and with no pressure tank the pump is either on or off so shutting off the use doesn't shut off the pump.  So I just use the sprinkler without the auto shut off ramp. 

 

 

 

[petek]

Hmmm I haven't seen them in any of the big box stores like HD, Lowes or Menards. I'll have another look next time

 

[whirlcool]

I bought ours probably in 1993 or so at Lowes and paid $65.00 or so for it.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

Here's a discussion thread on Lawn Sprinklers we'd had here:

http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?42129

I put a couple pictures there, of one sprinkler I own, and there are a few more sprinklers I've since then also acquired, that I hope I can take some more pictures of and share here, too...

-- Dave

 

[iheartmaytag]

Got mine about eight years ago at ACE Hardware.  Walmart also carries them, but forgive me for misspeaking.  They are not Mrlnor, they are Nelson.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Rain-Train-Traveling-Sprinkler/1597144

 

[whirlcool]

But nothing beats having a built in underground sprinkler system. That's what we finally did in this house. It has 10 different zones and we can program when each zone gets watering.
I just got so tired of dragging hoses around and remembering to turn the sprinklers off.

 

[arbilab]

Most neighbors had the tractor/follows hose type. It was always good for a snigger when they jumped the hose and ended up in the street. We had the Sunbeam reels-in-tape type. If you bought extra stakes it was said to be able to make turns but I never used it that way.

Knob on the top set diameter from 5-50 feet. Spun faster on the smaller diameters and reeled in the tape faster so it was always proportional. Built in auto shutoff when it reached the stake.

Here is a photo I dug up and posted here earlier. I recopied rather than linking so you wouldn't get lost in the other thread trying to find it.

 

[tomturbomatic]

I have two ancient Sunbeams, one the non-traveling version of the one pictured above with the area selector and the other with two arms with highly adjustable nozzels at the end of each arm that not only controlled the distance of the spray but also the type of spray from fine to coarse. Both have a great deal of wear so they leak at the column, but they are much more fun than the high-tech Gardena models. I also have a sprinkler that I first saw at a neighbor's in the mid 50s. It is red cast metal with an aluminum plate that is perforated in a double circle and on top of that is an aluminum impeller. It waters in a square pattern. One house on our street has an oscillating sprinkler that swooped back and forth really fast, putting on a real water show, nothing like ours that made slow arcs and delivered most of the water at each end of the arc.

I remember one afternoon when we were all runing through the sprinkler and one boy picked it up and was holding it in front of him to shower all of us. My mom opened the front door to give him hell about something and as he stood facing her, the sprinkler oscillated up and began spraying water in the door. She could not make him understand what she was saying so she just shut the door really fast to stop the spray. We were happy because he would be able to go home and not catch hell like we would have if we had done it AND because he got mom wet which meant that her cotton dress would have to be ironed where it got wet to look good again.[this post was last edited: 6/19/2014-09:40]

 

[variflexpghpa]

Rapid Sweep Oscillating Sprinker

Could this be the sprinkler you were referring to? Had one of in the late 70s. It was yellow, and the speed at which it oscillated was amazing. Recall it only lasted a few seasons, as it would not return from one side of a sweep. The only way it would work was to keep reducing the range of the arc. It was replaced with my fav oscillating sprinkler - Nelson Dial - A - Rain. And still have this sprinkler today, tho very rarely used.

Another quick return oscillator I remember was a Sherman - it was a beefy looking sprinkler with a circular chamber on each side. It also had an odd jet that cut diagonally across the regular spray arm

 

[tomturbomatic]

That is exactly the sprinkler. I was hesitant to describe it with the mechanical housing in the middle, but that is exactly what it had. Thank you mucho! I guess even though it had only two moving parts, it was not invincible.

 

[whirlcool]

Arbilab:

That sprinkler in the photo you put up is the one I remember as a kid in the 50's, it seemed almost everyone had one, and in the same color too!

 

[luxflairguy]

Sunbeam sprinkler

Arilabs pic is of the 2nd generation of the K-20. The first generation were green. I have every model and when we sold our house last summer, people thought it was strange to see a line-up of them in the living room. They sure don't take up as much space as vacuums!

 

[rp2813]

Square Spray -- "It Gets The Corners"

Tom, the red sprinkler you described sounds like a Squarespray.   One of our local ACE stores still carries them.  I found one recently at a thrift store in like-new condition.  I think it might be a vintage one, but haven't compared it to what I've seen at ACE. 

 

For larger areas, when we didn't have in-ground sprinklers at our last place, we got a Nelson "Pattern Master" which had a pulsating impact (Rainbird) type of head that had a tab on the back that was held against a plastic ring via spring pressure.   The ring was flexible with pegs attached below it at intervals of about an inch.  The pegs could be pushed all the way down, causing maximum upward tilt of the head (farthest spray), or all the way up for the reverse effect, and anywhere in between.  By creating contours in the ring, you could customize the spray to reach all corners of a particular patch of grass and almost eliminate overspray.   The whole thing sat on a pair of skis and got the entire lawn done in one shot without having to move it, with adjustable stops set for a 180 degree sweep and positioning the sprinkler at sidewalk's edge.   We used that sprinkler for 18 years until we moved, and it was all plastic.

 

Everything's in-ground here, so there's no need for hose-end lawn sprinklers anymore.  That doesn't mean I wouldn't grab a reasonably priced vintage green Rain King if I found one, though!  I love those things!

 

Here's a picture of the sleek modern iteration of our old Pattern Master, and a couple of the Squarespray.  I like that both types offer the option of stringing multiples along a length of hose.

 

 

[tomturbomatic]

Thanks for the picture

I still wonder how the impeller changed the circular water pattern into a square one unless it was the impeller's dragging the spray across the dead corners to fill them in. I did not know of anyone who connected the sprinklers together. Even if the yards had needed it and people in our mid 50s subdivision could have afforded more than one sprinkler, I don't know if the water pressure would have been sufficient to fully power more than one. I used to look at various types of lawn sprinklers and wonder how effective their spray pattern would be at the bottom of a dishwasher in place of the impeller.

 

[petek]

I like those pattern masters. I've had a few but the ring seems to only last a couple of years and then snaps. At least that's been my experience with them.

 

[rp2813]

Tom, if you look closely at the picture I posted above (or perhaps at one in person) you'll see that the three holes at each corner of the top plate on the Squarespray are shaped differently, as in more oval.  I think that's the trick to getting a square pattern.

 

I thought the same thing about water pressure if multiple (like two at most) sprinklers were run in sequence.  With enough pressure though, I could see a pair of Squaresprays managing to cover a rectangular lawn area with a single placement.

 

[jons1077]

sprinkler collection

I have a huge collection of various sprinklers. I will post pictures soon.

 

[westie2]

Jon welcome back to the AW.

 

Charles/Westie2

 

[jons1077]

Thank you Charles!

 

[sudsmaster]

I like the oscillating old sprinklers, but my small front yard now has a tree and several rose bushes planted in it, which block water from a traditional oscillating sprinkler.

The best approach would be pop-up underground sprinklers, but I haven't quite gotten around to that.

Instead I have a semi-permanent setup. The yard is basically a square, about 30 feet per side. I got some of those rotating ratcheting type sprinklers at the home improvement center, and put one at each corner of the lawn. The two closest to the house are in a small strip of dirt that doesn't have grass. I then attached them to a dual port hose timer. The two closest to the house go off first, and there's enough water pressure to run them well. Then the other two go off, again enough pressure to run them.

When it comes time to mow the lawn, about once a week during the height of the growing season, I just pull up the two outer sprinkers and move the garden hoses that connect them to the timer out of the way, mow, and put them back. The two that are setup closest to the house, in the dirt strip, can stay put because they (and their hoses) are out of the way of the mower.

This actually works well enough... eventually I'll dig up the lawn and lay down PVC pipe for a more traditional "popup" built-in sprinkling system. But for the past few years this hose-end system has worked well enough. Yes, you see the hoses during the week, but that's a small price to pay for a green lawn.
[this post was last edited: 6/26/2014-13:47]

 

[cuffs054]

Two houses ago the front sprinkler system used the tradional whole/half circle heads but the large area was covered by a Toro pop-up ocillating head. Never seen one before or since.

 

[paulg]

Sunbeam model PK

Here's our Sunbeam model PK. Bought it at an estate sale for one dollar. It didn't look like this though. If it were cleaned up they probably would have asked two dollars!
Although we have an automated sprinkler system, this little sprinkler comes in mighty handy when the main sprinkler is not working.

 

[jons1077]

Vintage Sprinkler Collection Photos

I took several quick snapshots of my collection. It's grown considerably over the years. When I have a little more time I'll go through and actually take individual photos of the NOS sprinkler outside of their boxes. Just figured these would provide a nice teaser for now. The RainTrain from 1977 is one I just picked up on EBAY a couple of weeks ago.