When the toilet pump handle broke, ideas began to flow.
Issue 145: July/Aug 2022
My father once offered me a sage piece of advice: Never get run over by the same trolley car twice. So, when the handle on my boat’s toilet pump sheared off in my hand, instead of sourcing an identical replacement from the toilet manufacturer, I vowed to build a better handle.
After the original handle broke, this hickory hammer handle stood in till the end of the season and inspired the concept for the fancy replacement.
I like my toilet. Of all the heads I’ve had the pleasure to know, this is my favorite. The PHII manual marine toilet, made by Raritan Engineering, does its job smoothly and rarely clogs. Service is easy thanks to a smart design that allows for simple removal and disassembly of the entire pump system. Better yet, service is rarely required.
Christopher started the handle with battens of 1/16-inch sapele.
My only qualm with this toilet is its pump handle. Constructed from a pair of telescoping aluminum bars and a slide-on plastic grip, the handle’s fit to the pump isn’t great, and the pumping motion feels sloppy. The telescoping feature regularly slides in unexpectedly, oftentimes pinching a finger. The plastic pump handle digs into the soft spot in the flusher’s palm in an irritating way. In short, the handle’s design and construction make flushing harder and more uncomfortable than it should be.
It was serviceable though, so I didn’t think too much about it. Then one day, the handle sheared right off in my hand. One minute we had a great toilet, and the next minute, no toilet. The spare toilet pump that I keep aboard was new, complete, and in the box ready to go, but it didn’t come with a handle. The wide assortment of toilet rebuild parts that I also keep aboard included just about every part in that toilet—except the handle.
The battens are glued up.
Luckily, we were bound for Northeast Harbor, Maine, the day the handle broke, and much to my amazement, it wasn’t a Sunday. The hardware/marine chandlery store in town, F.T. Brown, was open. This most excellent store provided a serviceable temporary fix: a replacement, hickory, hammer handle. I cut it down a bit on one end, whittled the taper on the other end, and we were back in business.
Christopher cuts the slot for the silicon-bronze stiffener.
Some sailors might be put off by the idea of a hammer handle for a toilet handle, but my wife, Alex, and I liked it. Its blend of rugged utilitarianism was as welcome as a blend of whiskey in a lowball glass. We liked the wood. We also liked the fact that it didn’t telescope. But it wasn’t perfect; the angles were wrong, and the end of the handle still ate away at that soft underbelly of the flushing hand.
I started to fantasize about a custom, bent-laminate toilet handle built of mahogany to match the interior trim on Sundance, our 36-foot Morris Justine. Once I opened that mental tap, toilet pump handle ideas flooded my head. Was I really going to spend my winter days building a custom hardwood toilet handle? Yes, I was! In fact, I was going to build two of them, because while I was at it, I knew it would be smart to build a spare.
The new handle fit to the pump, with the spare Christopher made at the same time.
I cut, bent, and glued a dozen 1/16-inch battens of sapele around a form that I carefully designed by eye. I rounded over the edges on my router table. A hole saw produced the perfect pin to fit the toilet socket. A centerline 1/4-inch bar of silicon bronze added strength. I glued that bar and through-bolted it with bronze fasteners hidden by mahogany bungs. Then I finished the handle with 12 coats of varnish.
Inspired by the wood and metalwork in the locker behind the toilet, Christopher created a new pump handle that would complement the details.
My mahogany creation met the plastic toilet pump with a pin/socket arrangement. I decided to glue the two together permanently with West System epoxy thickened with 404 high-density adhesive filler. Plastic is a less than ideal material for epoxy glue up, but the structure of the bond was exceptionally strong. I
suspect I picked up in mechanical adhesion all that I lost in chemical adhesion. Should that joint ever fail, I could through-bolt it later as well. For now, I opted not to, in an effort to keep that joint completely sealed and dry.
I laughed at myself nearly every day I worked on this project. In hindsight though, it wasn’t as frivolous as it sounds. We only have one toilet on Sundance, and it had better work. Flushing is now a pleasure. The pump handle feels perfect in the hand, and every stroke basks in the glow of an important project done well. And yes, it makes me laugh out loud, which is always a good thing.
Christopher Birch is cruising fulltime with his wife, Alex, and dog, Bill, aboard their 1991, 36-foot Morris Justine, Sundance. You can follow their voyage at EagleSevenSailing.com.
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