Garden Hose Connector Grips

Updates
2025-04-30
I have added another, slightly different design. This one falls between the Large and the Compact styles so its labelled Medium.

Summary
I have several garden hose, "Brass Quick Connects" that had plastic/rubber sleeves over the actual brass connectors. I found that they made attaching and removing the parts easy, especially when your hands get cold and wet and the connections are tight. Over time the sleeves either break or become loose and fall off.

I bought some new brass connectors that did not have these sleeves so I decided that I would make a sleeve that could be placed over these parts. While doing this I realized that the same sleeve could be used to fit over the female end of a hose so that the connection and disconnection of the hoses were easier without having to use wear gloves or use pliers. Of course this really depends on the hose fitting as manufacturers do not have a standard design. The basic knurled style works with the standard sleeves but there are a a couple of others that may not. I have an old hose with two different ODs (ledged) so I have included an STL that has the same. I also have several hoses with an octagonal design So I also designed an octagonal style.

The sleeve is printed using TPU to provide a rubber like feel and can be slid over the brass hose fitting relatively easily. Placing the TPU part in hot water will help if the fit is too tight. It should be tight enough so that it won't slip but being made from TPU it can be squeezed tighter if it does slip a little.
The larger outside diameter of the sleeve makes holding on to it with your fingers a little easier than trying to grip the smaller, and harder brass fitting which can get quite hard as your fingers get cold and wet and as you begin to loose strength in your fingers. I have designed a 'Large' part for hands that need at along with a 'Compact' part in case the other is too bulky for you.

I have not tested these by leaving them outdoors and exposed to the elements but even if they do fail after a year or so, they can be easily reprinted and replaced. Sitting in the hot sun may be an issue as the TPU may expand and become loose.

The 15mm wide sleeve should fit a regular garden hose, female end, as well as most female quick connect fittings. On some quick connect fittings a narrower sleeve is needed in order to allow the two parts to clip into place. The STLs are all 15mm high so if you require 10mm or even less for some quick Connects you can either drop the part into the build plate or scale the Z axis to get the appropriate height.

They are designed to fit on a 30mm OD brass fitting but if the part is too tight or too loose you can scale the fitting (X,Y) to adjust.
The brass fittings I use are the ones that do NOT have an 'O' ring on the male end. Many of the 'O' ring style have a smaller OD. I believe they are about 28mm or 29mm OD. The male end of the QC connectors I have is also a smaller OD (25mm) so I scaled the XY to 83% in order to fit (0.83x30=24.9.)

For those of you who didn't pay attention to your Math teacher in Middle School (probably not this group) divide your desired dia by 30 to get the percentage.
desired size/30=% for scaling