I made an armored air hose. Why? Because I can.
I had a metal-clad rubber hose which came from a hand-held water nozzle (either from a shower or a sink faucet; I forget which). The hose is about 5 feet (~ 1.5 m) long, and the metal housing is chrome-plated. The connectors on each end are brass, but they did not match up with any common U.S. pipe fittings I had in my junk pile. It still seemed like a pretty nice hose, too nice to throw out. Since the brass ends will solder easily, air compressor hose it is!
I used some short pieces of 3/8-inch copper tube to adapt the ends to the air hose fittings. On one end I soldered a male quick connector, and on the other end I soldered a male 1/4-inch NPT threaded connector, which screws into the female quick-connect socket.
It looks like latex hose inside, and the whole thing expands and stiffens just slightly under pressure. But it is certainly well contained, so I think it will probably still be fine. My initial test shows it works great.
Update: One concern mentioned to me was that oil from the air compressor pump may get into the line, and degrade the latex. I replaced the latex tube with a PVC tube which should withstand oil breakdown better.
Submitted by amillar on Sat, 2012-02-25 22:02