Mission Impossible IV - DIY Pump
Like the rest of my PE experience, I’ve been looking forward to making my own pumping rig and finding out what all the fuss is about. My mission, as if I could choose not to accept it, would be to order, construct, transport and test a pumping rig on an upcoming business trip. I’ve got the interesting aspect of stealth to consider in all aspects of the operation, so this adds to the complexity of the mission, considerably. The real question was: could I get my shit together in time to pull it off? This message self destructed several seconds later, so I decided to summarize it here for posterity. so much for security…
Since everything I do needs some plausible explanation outside of the pecker stretching world, I had to come up with some half-baked excuse that would pass with a minimal stench of bullshit if interrogated. Since I’ve toothpaste and other various toiletries have exploded, leaked or been smashed in transit, I thought that a hard-shelled container (that must be transparent to avoid the risk of detonation after passing through the x-ray machine at airport security) could pass as a plausible, if not ridiculous explanation. Plausible only because my other hair-brained bullshit tinkering projects have been ridiculous enough to make this seem almost reasonable. Most of my other PE gadgets have been a mess of clamps, bungees, velcro and crap to pass on their own accord. I was amazed I never got the 3rd degree explaining to my wife that the cock coil was a giant twisty-tie.
To construct such a shell would require a polycarbonate cylinder with one sealed end and one opening end. Each end would be created with a hole saw from a sheet of polycarbonate, each with two 1/4” holes to hook a mini bungee cord between them to keep it closed via tension. The sealed end was simply a single piece cut from the sheet to match the OD of the cylinder, joined with epoxy. The opening end would be non-functional in the vacuum setup, so I made the decision that it would be made from one piece slightly smaller than the ID of the cylinder and one that was the same or slightly larger than the OD. Once joined on the center-line, these would stay seated in the opening of the cylinder creating a carrying tube, as described. The two 1/4” holes would allow me to insert bicycle inner tube valves as nipples for the vacuum tubes and tighten them down with finger nuts over o-rings. I had both flexible vinyl tubing from another PE project, and a vacuum gauge I’d picked up from a previous Harbor Freight trip.
I ordered a couple of polycarbonate cylinders and a polycarbonate sheet from McMaster-Carr a couple weeks ago to be delivered to the office, but the first shipment never arrived. Four days after my second call (9 following my first) they shipped a replacement over night. So, I missed the first trip and ate up all the buffer time between that and my next trip, so I had only one weekend to pull it off.
Saturday AM: I drove over and rolled through the typical Harbor Freight inventory disaster under the cover of a gardening tool shopping trip to find some hole saws. I failed to find an appropriately sized hole saw, so I left with only the gardening equipment and was confined by work to be done with said equipment the rest of the day.
Sunday AM: a grocery store errand opened the opportunity to stop at Home Depot on the way home and find a couple of hole saws and o-rings. Unfortunately, I spaced out and forgot to be thinking about outer-diameter vs inner diameter, so the larger hole saw I got was close to being too small. With no time or reason to make the trip to replace it, I was stuck. And angry. I cut the smaller 2” ID cylinder to 9” length and called it a night.
I was thinking that night that I had luckily scheduled a later than usual departing flight, so I could theoretically stop in and swap out the hole saw at Home Depot before I left, but the plan still had holes in it, so to say… I couldn’t return home to drill the ends out or epoxy them without serious questions. I couldn’t take a cordless drill with me on the plane because I don’t voluntarily check baggage and I wouldn’t make it through security. So, I decided to take all the materials with me, drill out the poly sheets in the parking lot of Home Depot and take a hot glue gun with me for assembly.
In the morning, I collected all the parts and headed to Home Depot. I swapped out the saw and returned to the car to find I had somehow forgotten the sheet of polycarbonate in the mad shuffle to collect everything and get out of the house. As I fumed toward the office, I hatched a plan to find a suitable, but temporary alternative. I parked on an seldom used floor of the garage to avoid interaction if I was able to find something. When I came in, I scanned the mail room, kitchen and supply room for anything suitable to steal and destroy. I found a large clear plastic bin that looked thick and sturdy enough. About 15 minutes before I had to leave for the airport, I sneaked it out down the stairway and out to the car. I popped the hole saw on the drill and started cutting. As you can imagine, it was the most awful noise you’ve ever heard - like a million fingernails simultaneously scraping down a chalkboard and echoing through the garage like death (or a pink slip) looking for its prey. The melted plastic dripped from the slides of the disk, but it seemed thick enough to do the job, so I threw it in the seat and proceeded to cut another. In all, I cut three, but all using the outer diameter size because there was no time to worry about the nice lid to seat inside the tube. I put in a 1/4” bit and drilled two holes in two of the disks and one in another, just to make sure I had a variety in case my plans went awry. I found my tooth paste and tooth brush, thew them in and pulled it shut with the bungees, similar to what I had envisioned, and the rough melted plastic on the edges held them in place with enough friction to keep them from sliding without the inner diameter piece to seat it firmly. I brushed the plastic shavings from my shoes and pants, driving away just as some employees came out to leave for lunch and look for the source of the incredibly annoying noise.
I had all the pieces in different pockets between two bags to be a little less conspicuous going through security. After I made it through, I stopped off in the restroom for a pit stop.
In the hotel room that night, I arranged all the parts and started the assembly. I pulled two valve nipples through the holes of one of the end caps up to the remnants of the rubber left on their base and put an o-ring around the opposite side, clamping it down tight with a finger nut. I drew a thin bead of hot glue around the end of the cylinder and carefully centered the end cap before pressing it down. I was surprised I could do this quickly enough without making a huge mess. I turned it over to draw another bead around the base of the cylinder to make it more comfortable against my pelvis, realizing I should have done this before mounting the other end, as the nipples prevented me from keeping it upright and level as I spun it around applying the bead. I stuck the nipples in the medicine bottle I stored the smaller parts in to keep it level as it rotated. I could go slower this time since I didn’t have to worry about it curing before attaching the end cap, but I had to try twice as I wasn’t pleased with my first attempt. The bead came off easily, demonstrating that hot glue was a good decision for this prototype. I heated the ends of the vinyl tubing in a glass of hot water from the sink to soften the ends, and pulled it down over the nipples. I then inserted a nipple from which I had cut off the bottom flange, in the opposite direction at the end of the tube, and added another short length of tube to that. This would act as the non-return valve for oral evacuation. To the other tube, I attached my vacuum gauge. Curing time is really a matter of seconds, but I decided to take a break for dinner and test it out when I returned.
When I returned, I tested the rig on the inside of my forearm and it appeared to have a decent seal, but I’d have to actively maintain vacuum; i.e. - I sucked. I had a good stretch and a light jelq set to prep. I applied some lube and pulled it up to 6” Hg and watched it quickly drop as I swelled to a decent erection. I pulled it up to 6” again, and watched as it dropped again, although much more slowly down to 4” Hg. I had to keep this up every 10 seconds, so I clearly had a leak, but it was not clear where. Since the hot glue came off so easily, I sealed up the nipples to slow the leak further. It didn’t seem to help the leak, but it helped me eliminate the nipples as a design flaw.
I floated around 5” with that sip, sip, sip every once in awhile for 10 minutes and repeated 3 times. I was able to get a feel for the pull of a vacuum, see how my body reacted, and think of ways to improve the design beyond fixing the leak(s). It was a complete hack, but I pulled it off despite Murphy’s many attempts to sabotage it along the way. It was amazing to see that I actually packed the girth of the tube and to 7 7/8” length - 1/4” larger than I’ve ever seen. The fact that I really am nearly as big as that piece of plastic confirms to me that I have severe body dismorphic disorder. The cylinder looks huge in my hands and it doesn’t seem like my penis is anywhere near that size. I posted a question about my pumping experience and would appreciate any feedback vets could share. My closing remark would be, yes, I’m addicted (to both DIY and PE) and loving it.