Tool Kit for the Venus 2000 System

By far the most important single tool one needs for receiver maintenance is a pair of scissors. Good ones. You want the kind sold as garden scissors or kitchen scissors. They need to be a bit heavy duty but not as heavy as those monsters for dismembering turkeys. More like a shop scissors than sewing scissors. They are used for the cutting of the latex liner material mostly and this is a constant and important operation. Mine were specifically sold as garden shears, which explains the strange semi-circular notch in the blade. It was for cutting off small twigs.

Other tools include a screwdriver/Allen wrench set. I was able to find a very cheap $10 set at Radio Shack that included a screwdriver with replicable 1/4 inch hex drive screwdriver tips. Included was a nice large flat blade tip that works for the giant screw that you need to remove to change the mechanical stroke length setting on the drive wheel, but also the exact hex key tip needed for the four flat head case screws on the Venus 2000 power unit. An ordinary Allen key will work just fine, but the screwdriver format is quite handy.

A scrubber pad is essential. It is like sandpaper for plastic when used right. The green kind that is coarse and is sold in pads and as one face of special scrubber sponges for the kitchen sink. Nothing works as well for making sure the ends of the receivers are nice and smooth and well rounded. These are major wear points and some care with these edges will greatly reduce one of the major causes of receiver liner failure. I use sandpaper as well for rough work, but always finish with a brisk polish with the plastic scrubber pad either wet or dry. It can also be used to "frost" or slightly roughen the outer faces of the ends of receives which improves the grip of the liner material when in place. In the first picture it is the green rectangle on top of the red tool bag.

A "Sharpie" type permanent black marker is very nice for labeling your liner stock and marking lengths etc. I use the kind that smells of organic solvents when you take the lid off, not the water based kind. And the kind that comes to a point, not the flat wedge tip kind.  Three are several sizes of liner stock you will want to keep on hand and keeping them in labeled plastic bags is recommended.

A small plastic flexible ruler is nice and you may end up with your favorite extra tools. I often resort to a broken drumstick that has had the broken end all polished up and cleaned, to push liner material through receivers for instance, it was once a plastic "Wham Rod" type drumstick.

A toothbrush is just about essential. It is used to vigorously scrub the valves in the end caps after use, while holding them under running water to get all the lubrication out of the valve mechanism. I recently found a larger stiffer "pot scrubbing" brush that may be a bit better. Seems to be hog bristle. It does an excellent job of cleaning the receiver cap and valves. The bottle brush at the top of the photo was supplied with the Venus 2000 system.

Receivers need to be rinsed out after every use and allowed to drain, but it is also important to give the valves a good scrub at the same time. If the lubricant dries in the valve it will seize up. Some kind of small metal tip can "worry" the ball and break it free if it gets stuck, something like the end of a giant paperclip, applied after some soaking and scrubbing of the valve.

Special Liner Working Tools

And then there is my special tool. Several cork borers. You can live without these of course, but I have found them very useful for liner work. They are usually brass tubes and you may have to make your own out of brass tubing from the local hobby shop. They are just brass tubes with T-handles on them. One end is sharpened on the outside to make a cutting edge.

It is not a very durable cutting edge. I use a small block of wood as a backing for the cutting and you need to use care with these so they do not slip. You press them down and rotate them back and forth a bit and they will cut a beautiful clean hole in the latex rubber liner material. They are a form of chisel, so you need to use particular care working with these. Why one would want to make holes in the liner material will be explained in the description of optimizing the critical constrictors on receivers.

I was shocked when I priced cork borers, they have become outrageous! After a search revealed how unbelievably expense these things are if you try to purchase them from a laboratory supply house, I checked for alternatives. What found are leather punches. These are very similar in how they work, though more ruggedly constructed. Tandy Leather makes them in both a nice set with replaceable tips that is quite economical. Also individual steel punches, even some in interesting shapes like those which punch oblong holes. If you get the set be sure to get the Maxi one, as those holes are a much more useful, larger size.

Other special tools might include pinking shears which can cut a toothed edge on liner material. A roller cutter, the kind used in dressmaking. These rotary cutters require a special cutting mat. Of special interest is one that cuts a smooth wavy line, a kind of wavy pinking shears.

For changing the length of receivers buy cutting off one end of the housing, a fine tooth hacksaw seems to work quite well. I have had good results from one called a "close quarters" hacksaw. It is quite compact and is well suited to working its way around the plastic housing cleanly.

The description of constrictor construction and receiver optimization will make clear how some of these special items might be used. But, all you really need for a simple liner replacement is a good pair of scissors to cut the latex liner material to length for the constrictor section, the liner length and the securing bands.

12/03