Ya, I've seen him run it. He does relentless, and meticulous body work on only 1980 Olds Cutlass's. The only abuse it had was very extensive usage.
What did you do to your shop today?
- Thread starter RecklessRegal
- Start date
This here “dude with a fancy Monte Carlo” had a pretty productive weekend out in the shop too.
Early Saturday morning I made my way out to The Skunkworks and found a hapless forlorn looking fellow skulking around my garage door looking like he just gave away his last Buick Regal. (Too soon? 😜)
So I took pity on him and gave him a smokin’ deal on my old air compressor to ease his G body woes.
After we loaded up Old Faithful and he drove off into the sunset, I prepared for my next visitor. Shortly after 1 pm, the sparky showed up to scope out what was going to be needed to wire in the new compressor. After a brief jaunt over to the orange big box store, he returned with what he needed to do the job.
Couple hours later, I was able to perform all my checks and commission the new unit. Houston, we have air!
This was only part of the battle though, the air was only in the tank. I still had the inline filters to reconfigure, come up with a condensate management system of some sort, and tie back into my piping system.
Sunday morning I decided to pursue an idea I’ve been thinking about for a condensate collection vessel. For those not in the know, when you compress air, you cannot compress water. All air has a certain amount of water in it, so we have to remove and collect it somehow. This water we call condensate. Usually it’s as simple as draining it out of the tank after it condenses, but there can be other places it comes from. In my case, it’s from the tank and the refrigerated dryer, along with a small amount of oil and particulates removed by the filters. I had my old compressor equipped with an automatic timed drain that used a small amount of compressed air to push the water out, and I kept it to use on this new compressor. The new dryer does the same thing, so what to do to prevent the air pressure from splashing all the water around when it’s pushed out?
My previous forms of coffee cans and buckets certainly weren’t doing the trick, the oily water would just splash out of the vent holes and make a mess.
This morning I found and purchased a used stainless steel beer keg from a very grumpy oriental man in his housecoat, and drug it home.
After carefully relieving the little bit of remaining pressure in it, I drilled and tapped 1/4” holes in the top for a high flow vent…
…3 more in the sides for 3/8” push-to-connect fittings for the tank, dryer, and filter drains…
…plus a petcock opposite the vent to be able to empty it once it’s full. Inline with the handles of course, for ease of use. 😁
Now every time the tank or dryer drains go off, I’m going to have this mysterious craving for a brew!
After that I installed all the drain lines into it, and reconfigured the inline filters. I eliminated the bypass I had on there before (not really needed for my application), and mounted them to the wall. Then connected to the compressor with a short length of high pressure hose, and replaced the too-short length of blue TransAir piping with a longer one.
Pressured up the whole works, and The Skunkworks has air again!
We’re back in business baby. Just have to rearrange some posters and tin signs to fill in the voids on the walls and put stuff away, but that’s it.
Oh and by the way, the new compressor purrs like a kitten and makes air in a hurry. I’m really looking forward to using it and putting it through its paces.
😁
Jim, yes that is rubber hose with pushlok fittings, with gear clamps for extra insurance that it won’t blow off.
Not 3 dryers, just one built into the compressor. Plus the timed tank drain and 3 inline filters. If it’s the filters you’re referring to, they do not remove water, that’s the refrigerated dryer’s job. One filter is particulate removal, one is a coalescing oil removal, and the last one is an extra fine coalescing oil removal filter for painting. Paint and oil do not mix.
And yes, all filters have a CFM rating. They’re usually tied with the size of the inlet and outlet ports. 1/2” ports will flow *** CFM, 3/4” ports will flow *** CFM, etc etc.
Rktpwrd That vagrant hanging out by your shop shouldn't feel too bad. At least the guy to bought his last Regal isn't too bad of a guy. Just don't ask his wife she may tell you differently...
As for me I mounted up a new light over my janky work bench and hung up my Milwaukee battery charger. I didn't like the shadow that was being cast on my workbench. When you can buy Lithonia lights at cost you just do.
As for me I mounted up a new light over my janky work bench and hung up my Milwaukee battery charger. I didn't like the shadow that was being cast on my workbench. When you can buy Lithonia lights at cost you just do.
It always depends on the product line and if any other wholesalers are screwing up the market. The Contractor Select stuff could be anywhere from 20-30 points. Products like the CSS L96 are amazing but people want them for Chineseium pricing. Generally speaking the more wholesalers/retailers who sell the same line the tighter the margins are Albeit not every wholesaler/supplier is going to be on the same NET pricing values.
Some of the SPEC grade stuff or Class 1 Div1/2 Explosion-proof stuff. IE there is an engineer/architect involved and they won't accept anything other than spec fixtures the sky is the limit.
I don't know how much markup there is, or if it's cheaper nearby their plant, but they were based within about 20 minutes of one house we sold. Stores all over the area carried their products and prices were cheaper than many of the other companies off the shelf.
Might be a 'we want to own our home turf' thing like many companies execute.
that probably explains the one I saw couple of years ago at HD. pulled it out of the box, what a sorryess cheapess POS made to chinesium standards that I ever saw. it was like the ground was made out of twisted aluminum foil. nothing but CCC. I'll have to look at some of the other products because after that incident I wouldn't give any of them a second look.
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