DIYbanter - Shape for a pressure washer fan nozzle

I bought what sounds similar several years ago when a hardware chain
went out of business. I left it in an unheated garage one winter and
one of the brass pieces of the wand froze and split. I figured - no
problem- just go get a replacement fitting at another hardware store. I
took the wand parts to check, just to be sure.

Guess what? All the brass fittings were metric threaded! The whole
washer was made in Italy. No metric threaded fittings in the whole
Seattle area.

I was rather new to metalworking at the time, but had a small Prazi
lathe with all the change gears. The instructions were clear enough
about threading that let me actually make a replacement fitting. It's
still there and working.

This story is just to warn you and perhaps others that the Chinese
washers of today mey be copies of the Italian washer of 10 years ago!

Paul

Ben Jackson wrote:
I bought the cheapest HF pressure washer. The nozzle is a straight
jet
(which is plenty powerful for what I need) and to get a fan spray you
twist the end of the wand and two plates come together and pinch the
stream into a fan. The fan spray seems disproportionately
underpowered.
I'd like to turn a fixed narrow nozzle for it in the hopes of
preserving
more power with a wider footprint.

Any suggestions on what the shape should be?

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/