I’m trying to do a budget horn/on board air for my truck. My factory ones have been broke for a year and I’m getting tired of yelling out the window.
So I’m looking at buying a 4 gallon tank paired with a used Viair compressor. First question would be which compressor to use? I’d don’t use horns constantly but I am planning on plumbing an ‘air chuck’ fitting to top off my 35" truck tires [65psi max], trailer tires, or Firestone helper bags on my 2500 truck. Occasional use only. I’m looking at the 380c and up compressors. There is a 450c on craigslist I could probably get for $120ish or less.
Next are the horns. I just don’t have the budget for real train horns, even though I love the sound of those Nathan P3’s. I don’t have to have train sounding horns, but just something full and loud to alert other drivers or drifting truckers.
I’m looking and spending around that or less building the whole kit; compressor/tank/horns. A little out of my price range Looking for the best bang for the buck.
If you’re on a tight budget, you could go on ebay and look up Dozerboymiller’s PVC train horn plans. I bought a copy and built a set with my son. We had a great time doing it and they are LOUD!!! I used them for a couple months and there wasn’t a person that didn’t hear me when I used them. I ended up donating them to someone and investing in a Conductor’s Special Model 540 from Hornblasters. They should be here tomorrow afternoon. As I said before, if the money is tight, you could build three of them for about $60. PM me if you have any questions on the build. There were a few things I did different than Dozerboymiller and it seemed to work better. You can also go on YouTube to see some of the horns he’s made. Hope this helps.
I’ve actually got his manual, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to replicate his builds well enough to have em sound good. I’m all for building them if I can get them to sound as good or better than the Wolo “Siberian Express”.
What did you do differently to make them sound better? Did you build a 3 bell setup? Got any videos?
When I built my horns, there was a few things that I did differently. One thing that I recommend is using brass barbed nipples to connect your hoses to the system rather than using the nylon ones. I found that the nylon ones leaked a lot of air. When putting the barbed nipples into the 3" to 2" reducing coupling, put them in the slanted side of the coupling instead of the 2" side as the directions say. I had a hard time drilling though the coupling and reducing bushings without the drill binding and wallowing out the hole. I also suggest that you use the poly-carbonate instead of the aluminum flashing to make the diaphragms. Make sure that you buy the poly-carbonate and not acrylic. It is extremely tough and can take the abuse thrown at it from high PSI and cold weather. I found that Home Depot sold small sheets (enough for about 15 horns) at a reasonable price. As shown in some of Dozerboymiller’s videos, I ran 1/2 inch hose from the air tank through a valve in the car and then to a manifold I made from 1/2" PVC. From the 1/2" PVC I ran 3/8" hose to each horn (also using a yellow wire connector shown in one of Dozer’s videos to act as a flow regulator into the horn). Make sure you use hose clamps on all the hoses because the high air pressure will blow the hoses off on the first blast. I found that blowing the horns at 110-120 psi worked best. As far as tuning the horns, look on the internet for the type of horns you are trying to match and find the notes you need to tune them to. I used an Android app to tune them to the matching frequencies of a K3LA. They sounded just like the real thing when I was done. Be patient as the high notes can be tricky to hit. Dozerboymiller should have sent you a link on how to tune your horns and how to reach those high notes. I hope this helps and happy blasting. You won’t be disappointed in the loudness of the horns. I loved mine but donated them to someone that couldn’t build their own because of an illness. Rather than building another set I decided to get a set of shockers from Hornblasters. I’ll probably build another set of PVC ones down the road. They were a fun project to work on.
Welcome to the forum. If you really get the air horn bug and want to blow them a lot along with many other tasks, like quickly airing up tires or running a 1/2" impact, then check out the XD3000 & XD4000 air compressors on Hornblasters. They are in the constant duty section. They’re not in your budget yet but maybe in the future.
I saw some Leslie RS3L horns on ebay for $250 ‘buy it now’ this morning, I came here to check current prices and get some info on them…by the time I returned to ebay they were sold.
So it looks like I’m just going to build some PVC ones. It’s in my budget and will get me as close as I can to real train horns within the budget I’ve allotted.
Great additional info on the PVC horns cjohnson1073! A few more questions…
On the build details what thickness of poly-carbonate did you use? I bought some PVC horn parts and flashing a while back, of course I’ve got to dig them up and see what else I need to start. I know I need trans funnels.
Would a Leslie RS3L sounding set of PVC horns be do-able or should I pick something else to emulate? I’m not sure what the PVC horns are capable of.
How are PVC horns on air? Will 4 gallon due or will I need 5 or more? Probably run a used 400 series Viair compressor.
Can you use an electric solenoid to activate PVC horns? I’m guessing you just plumb it inline between the tank and horn manifold, correct? 1/2" in/out on the solenoid? Also what brand or style should I get?
Danh, thanks for the info, I’m sure if I get hooked I’ll be spending a little more and keep you in mind.
- On the build details what thickness of poly-carbonate did you use? I bought some PVC horn parts and flashing a while back, of course I’ve got to dig them up and see what else I need to start. I know I need trans funnels.
I believe the thickness was 0.093. I priced it out at Lowes and Home Depot and found that Home Depot had better prices on the Poly-carbonate while Lowes had better prices and selection on all the other fittings.
- Would a Leslie RS3L sounding set of PVC horns be do-able or should I pick something else to emulate? I’m not sure what the PVC horns are capable of.
I’m not sure of the sound of the RS3L. I tuned mine to sound like a K3LA. Sounded just like the train. I don’t remember the notes right off hand but you can find them online along with the frequencies too.
- How are PVC horns on air? Will 4 gallon due or will I need 5 or more? Probably run a used 400 series Viair compressor.
I don’t know how they would work on the 4 or 5 gallon. I had a 26 gallon that I pumped up to 120psi and was able to get about 10 blasts out of it before needing to top the tank off. I think that question would better be answered by the pros.
- Can you use an electric solenoid to activate PVC horns? I’m guessing you just plumb it inline between the tank and horn manifold, correct? 1/2" in/out on the solenoid? Also what brand or style should I get?
I’d say that you could use a solenoid to blast the horns. Should work just fine the way you described. I had a ball valve controlling mine and liked it. The new set I installed today has the solenoid.
Thanks for the quick response and additional info again.
After looking around dozerboymiller’s youtube videos I found this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK33N59tQns He uses 4" poly-carbonate diaphragms instead of 3" like in the manual. I opened two different youtube vidoes and had my girl quiz me on which were real Nathan M3 horns vs PVC Nathans. I found myself guessing wrong 1/2 the time.
S0, I’ve got 5-6 pieces of PVC laying around for the 3" build and some galvanized flashing that is .017" [too thick]. Basically not the parts I need, so I’m going to search around for what I need, gather the parts, and start building. Looks like 4" to 2" reducers, obviously 4" 'loading collar", 2" internals instead of 1.5", and 1" pipe instead of 3/4". I read through my booklet a little yesterday and I’m not 100% understanding of making them, but I’m sure I’ll get through it. I sort of wish someone had a cutaway drawing or picture of a completed horn.
Thanks again for the info. I just need to figure out what size tank I need. Maybe instead of going with a 4 gallon truck tank I’ll get one of those habor freight 5, 7, or 11 gallon portable tanks and just house it in my tool box instead of under the bed. I just don’t want to over work the compressor and cause it an early death. I suppose I could save even more money just filling that reserve tank from time to time with my home air compressor.
When you bought your plans from Dozerboymiller, he should have sent you some links to some private videos offering some further advice on the proper ways to build the horns. There was a lot of good information in them. If you don’t have them I’d say shoot him an email asking for access to them. If my memory serves me correctly, if you plan on building the 4" horns (which I’d love to do but have no room anywhere to mount them) I think you have to double up on the poly-carbonate diaphragms. I think that information was in one of the private videos.
I guess where I am now is trying to figure out what size tank is necessary. What the horns need will determine what tank size. What tank size will determine what compressor to use. Once I get that figured out I can start buying stuff and building this setup.
So a 4" diaphragm three chime/bell/horn PVC horn needs what size tank? Can I get away with 4 or 5 and one compressor or do I need more? That’s the big question. If it needs more than 4-5 gallons, then I’ll need more than one compressor, a large tank or two smaller ones, and my attempt to build a budget kit will fail.
i doubt they’d “need” more than 5 gallons. I have a k3 and I started off with a 3 gallon tank. Not a lot of honk time but it was loud for a quick honk or two.
i couldn’t tell you for certain, but I doubt that they would use more air than their real counterparts unless you do a really poor job of making them or something, and they leak a lot. In either case a 5 gallon tank is probably a good place to start.
Do you have an air compressor with a tank close to 5 gallons? You could always build the horn and honk it with that to see if you’d be somewhat satisfied with the honk time.
I couldn’t say for sure what size tank you’re going to need but if air supply is a concern you might consider scaling your horns down from 4" to 3". The set of 3" ones I built were extremely loud. To see a comparison look at Dozerboymillers YouTube videos, there is one where he uses a decibel meter showing that the 3" pvc horns are almost as loud as the real thing. I think that doing the 4" horns will only result in a deeper tone and not be any louder. One other option you might consider is starting with a small tank and if you determine that it isn’t big enough, you can always couple a second small tank to your original one without having to replace the first one. Hope this helps.
Looking for the best bang for the buck.
