Mar 2, 2012

Air solution

Some fellows manage to run a house and even a hobby gun-tinkering shop without compressed air. This is sad. Forget people on food stamps; an airless man is the truly deprived soul.

Couple of months ago I became one. The 10-or-12 year-old Campbell-Hausfield blew up.  It was my own fault. A consumer-grade machine  -- the happy-homeowner model -- it  still  would have lasted years longer  if I were more religious about turning it off  when I left the shop. A slow leak in the system kept it needlessly cycling on and off, at least trebling the wear.

I recently hauled a new one home.  It's also assuredly non-professional, with an  advertised output smaller than the old one, about five cfpm  at 90 psi. That's enough for most of the work around here, but too wussy if I decide to use air-hog tools -- sanders, etc. The situation is improved by adding an extra tank to the system.

Aha! Opportunity knocks.

I've never had a convenient air outlet in the gun/reloading shack. But now the old C-H tank will be mounted in or adjacent to the room and fed by the new magic air densifier thourgh permanent piping to its on-board tank.  A whip hose will be handy to the bench.  One result: tidier gun innards.  Another: About 35 gallons of  total storage capacity, just in case I want to sand-blast this or that.

Well, that's probably already more than you want to know about me and my air. So I'll sign off now.

Oh wait, you have a question? ...

Well, yes, hot compressed air is sometimes useful, but I'll be damned if I can think up a way to pipe Al Sharpton into the system

1 comment:

John said...

Careful using 'Al Sharpton' and 'pipe' in the same sentence - he's liable to show up demanding a hit of whatever you're smoking!