Thomas Air Compressor

[C_Remington]

So, I just picked one up the other day. Tired of spending money for cans of compressed air. So far, pretty cool. Does anyone else use one of these??

[Tin Can]

Looks like there are many models of those.

For me, an oil free cheap Porter Cable nailer compressor does everything I need.

Blow off negs, cameras, whatever, fill my tires and use my nailers.

You can add a dryer and regulator to any compressor.

I stuck mine in the furnace closet and leave it on 24/7 with lines to my bathroom darkroom and to my front door for tire filling.


So, I just picked one up the other day. Tired of spending money for cans of compressed air. So far, pretty cool. Does anyone else use one of these??

[Jody_S]

Cheap 1/4Hp made-in-China with added air dryer. I think I paid $40 on sale somewhere. It's my 3rd one, so there may be some advantage to buying a good one, if anyone knows where to find one these days.

[C_Remington]

Bathroom????



Looks like there are many models of those.

For me, an oil free cheap Porter Cable nailer compressor does everything I need.

Blow off negs, cameras, whatever, fill my tires and use my nailers.

You can add a dryer and regulator to any compressor.

I stuck mine in the furnace closet and leave it on 24/7 with lines to my bathroom darkroom and to my front door for tire filling.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

"bathroom darkroom" I think

I have a big compressor which I use for many different things, including blowing on my images, building things, running an air brush, and irritating the cat. I have an oil filter on it, but not a drier. Any suggestions for a high quality one?

[C_Remington]

Everyone's mentioned a dryer. I can't imagine what this is??

[Tin Can]

Don't worry soon the real darkroom will emerge.

Many of us have bathroom /darkrooms


Bathroom????

[Tin Can]

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Campbell-Hausfeld-Desiccant-Dryer-PA208503AV/100671461#.UafS9UC1F8E



Everyone's mentioned a dryer. I can't imagine what this is??

[Ron Stowell]

I have two of these vacuum pumps, one Gast the other Thomas. Paid $15. each.
These are not really air compressors, their original purpose was for use as a gas sampling vacuum pump.
Used a cooling coil and a dryer between the pumps and the O2 sampler.
Used several of these while doing environmental testing (pollution control) for power plants.
The original price for a new pump about $450. new.

[Tin Can]

Industrial takeaways are always good. My old lab used to throw out more stuff than I could catch.


I have two of these vacuum pumps, one Gast the other Thomas. Paid $15. each.
These are not really air compressors, their original purpose was for use as a gas sampling vacuum pump.
Used a cooling coil and a dryer between the pumps and the O2 sampler.
Used several of these while doing environmental testing (pollution control) for power plants.
The original price for a new pump about $450. new.

[Drew Wiley]

I've had one Thomas compressor in the shop for thirty years, and bought another for the darkroom. And they are statistically fifty times more durable than those toyish made in China abominations. A lot quieter too, and less water condensation. Unfortunately, Thomas was very poor at marketing and now no longer offers either portable compressors or service parts for extant ones. They just make specialized vacuum pumps etc. But lots of the susceptible parts are basic and interchangeable with all kinds of things. The difference with most made-in-China tools is that when something breaks you just throw it away - it ain't worth fixing.
But if you're the type who thinks you are actually going to save a buck on one of those things, a plastic Holga camera would probably appeal to you too! Cheap
compressors are generally inefficient, so to up the air output they use noisy high-RPM motors. Then to keep these quiet they baffle these in plastic (like Porter
Cable does), so the unit tend to overheat. This both greatly shortens the life of the machine and creates a lot of water buildup in the tank and lines. Instead of
a line drier of the compressor, you attach the hose to a long slanted copper pipe overhead so the moist air will and condense into a collector at the lower end
(or buy a decent compressor to begin with). The amt of water collection varies with humidity and dewpoint anyway. Regardless, you should drain your tanks everyday and have a series of inline filters, right down to submicron size before air reaches your film.

[Tin Can]

Pretty much what any spray painter would also require.

Since I have no line leaks my POS Porter Cable has lasted 10 years and meets more needs than a specialized tiny thing.

What do you suggest people buy today?


I've had one Thomas compressor in the shop for thirty years, and bought another for the darkroom. And they are statistically fifty times more durable than those toyish made in China abominations. A lot quieter too, and less water condensation. Unfortunately, Thomas was very poor at marketing and now no longer offers either portable compressors or service parts for extant ones. They just make specialized vacuum pumps etc. But lots of the susceptible parts are basic and interchangeable with all kinds of things. The difference with most made-in-China tools is that when something breaks you just throw it away - it ain't worth fixing.
But if you're the type who thinks you are actually going to save a buck on one of those things, a plastic Holga camera would probably appeal to you too! Cheap
compressors are generally inefficient, so to up the air output they use noisy high-RPM motors. Then to keep these quiet they baffle these in plastic (like Porter
Cable does), so the unit tend to overheat. This both greatly shortens the life of the machine and creates a lot of water buildup in the tank and lines. Instead of
a line drier of the compressor, you attach the hose to a long slanted copper pipe overhead so the moist air will and condense into a collector at the lower end
(or buy a decent compressor to begin with). The amt of water collection varies with humidity and dewpoint anyway. Regardless, you should drain your tanks everyday and have a series of inline filters, right down to submicron size before air reaches your film.

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah... sorry not to fully answer the question, but the by far the best affordable import compressor suitable for a darkroom that I've found is the RolAir JC10. It's
a little over two hundred bucks, quieter than most refrigerators, has two tandem low-RPM pumps and an efficient cooling coil. Other than a couple of units which
had a defective relief valve (easy to replace) they've been holding up fine so far for finish carpenters and lab usage. It's what I'd get; but at this point I have no
idea how it might compare to the lifespan of a Thomas tank compressor. Of course, there are all kinds of choices once you go into an oiled cast unit, but then you
get way more weight an noise. I twisted a lot of arms to get something like this in production, and alas, it does comes from China too; but this time they did a pretty
intelligent job designing and assembling it.

[Tin Can]

RolAir JC10 looks like a good compressor, I do like quiet, but at 60 db it is louder than my 52-57dB Honda EU1000i gas engine generator.

I will consider a RolAir JC10 when the Porter Cable does die.


Yeah... sorry not to fully answer the question, but the by far the best affordable import compressor suitable for a darkroom that I've found is the RolAir JC10. It's
a little over two hundred bucks, quieter than most refrigerators, has two tandem low-RPM pumps and an efficient cooling coil. Other than a couple of units which
had a defective relief valve (easy to replace) they've been holding up fine so far for finish carpenters and lab usage. It's what I'd get; but at this point I have no
idea how it might compare to the lifespan of a Thomas tank compressor. Of course, there are all kinds of choices once you go into an oiled cast unit, but then you
get way more weight an noise. I twisted a lot of arms to get something like this in production, and alas, it does comes from China too; but this time they did a pretty
intelligent job designing and assembling it.

[Drew Wiley]

It's quieter than most airbrush compressors, and just a fraction the noise of any Porter Cable. Two weeks ago I saw some big compressors being made in one of
the old bldgs where PC used to be before being dumped by B&D/Dewalt in one of their usual scorched earth corporate takeovers. The buyout and outsoucing of PC and Delta collapsed two entire counties in Tennessee, the economy shifted to meth, etc.... But with all those vacant factories and a lot of skilled labor still looking
for work in the area, it's inevitable and encouraging that new mfg are moving in and revitalizing things. Ikea also moved a big mfg facility into the neigborhood.

[Tin Can]

Believe me. I hate Chinese products and do my best to buy American whenever possible. I lost my auto tech job to Shanghai. They moved the test lab, but kept the factory here. Made no sense. Very expensive move, took 10 years. We used a lot of process water and Shanghai is considerably hotter than Chicago, forcing bigger chillers, bigger everything...

My compressor rarely runs when lightly used for photo dusting under low flow, low volume usage. I use a pencil air gun that can be adjusted to just a puff, way more controllable than cans of 'air'.

[Drew Wiley]

Yes Randy. Low pressure darkroom applications don't put stress on a compressor like commercial usage. 98% of my own products go to construction or industrial
usage, plus we repair hundreds of compressors of every description here each year, so I get a very good statistical ideal of reliability. Lots of these Sear/Depot/etc
compressors fail for construction crews anywhere within half and hour to six months of usage. The first repair will be a hundred bucks and then it will fail again a
couple months later. If that hundred bucks had been spent up front on a quality unit to begin with, their first repair would be about ten to fifteen years away.
I just don't like buying junk anything or supporting shmoozing jerks that destroy previously solid US companies just to get themselves rich with a golden parachute contract.

[Tin Can]

I was a Snap-On tool dealer for 5 years and everyone enjoyed the quality of Snap-On USA made products. I opened up an inner city ghetto route where 50% of my customers were recent immigrants and spoke little english, but they knew Snap-On was the best and demanded it.

It's great selling single pieces of quality steel, like a wrench and every sale of a complicated tool is always fraught with quality reliability issues. Snap-On and I made every attempt to sell only the best, in metal tools, compressors, jacks, tool boxes air tools, etc.

Professionals in all fields recognize the absolute necessity of tool (camera) quality and reliability. A guarantee is worthless if your tool fails when you need it.



Yes Randy. Low pressure darkroom applications don't put stress on a compressor like commercial usage. 98% of my own products go to construction or industrial
usage, plus we repair hundreds of compressors of every description here each year, so I get a very good statistical ideal of reliability. Lots of these Sear/Depot/etc
compressors fail for construction crews anywhere within half and hour to six months of usage. The first repair will be a hundred bucks and then it will fail again a
couple months later. If that hundred bucks had been spent up front on a quality unit to begin with, their first repair would be about ten to fifteen years away.
I just don't like buying junk anything or supporting shmoozing jerks that destroy previously solid US companies just to get themselves rich with a golden parachute contract.

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah ... It's amazing. Everybody out there is trying to make money on low-quality cheapo outsourced crap. I do the opposite, sell only the best you can get, and
have so much damn business that I have to have two or three trucks of equip in transit from a mfg at any given time. And the immigrants want to get ahead fast,
work hard, and buy the best of the best. Meanwhile, startup US manufacturers can't even find enough skilled help in this country. Every kid thinks he gonna become
Mark Zuckerburg is he refuses a hands-on trade and just plays computer games. "Jobs of the future" they call it - but most of those already left for India or
Bangledesh as the jobs of yesterday. Welcome to WalMart.

[Micke_Sahil]

So, I just picked one up the other day. Tired of spending money for cans of compressed air. So far, pretty cool. Does anyone else use one of these??
Yes I used Ridetech 31920002 Thomas Air Compressor. and i found All good, on time. :) (https://sixtimesanhour.com/best-air-compressors-for-mechanic-shop/)

[Tin Can]

I use 2 of these https://www.amazon.com/California-Air-Tools-CAT-1P1060SP-Compressor/dp/B077CNLPBC/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=california+air+compressor&qid=1630668450&sr=8-2-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExNzBHRjc5S0Y0NkFQJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODUzOTE5REc1WlA0U1MwR0UwJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAwNzE0OTExVEtWRExQVE44RzBOJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

Their price is climbing, I like a small tank with 2 dryers regulated down to 20 PSA with a needle valve pencil air gun

I can make a tiny puff of clean air, also use only clean new hoses

The second one is for my many tires

[Drew Wiley]

Nothing much has changed about this old thread. Porter Cable compressors are still wretched junk, as are seemingly all home center options. Certain Thomas portable compressors can still be ordered custom built from the outfit that bought up all their remaining parts inventory when that particular plant was liquidated, for about double or triple the original price! I still stand by my advice of RolAir JC-10 as the most realistic alternate to Thomas if you want something small and quiet and cool-running for a darkroom or small shop - certainly not equal to vintage US made Thomas, but way more affordable and so far, so good.

Thomas still makes vacuum and compressor pumps per se for industrial usage at a different plant in Louisiana, and one could build their own compressor using one of those. You'd still need a tank and regulator, pressure switch, etc. Just a pump by itself is a rather inefficient way to get the job done.

That California Air Tool outfit imports from the same manufacturer as Rol-Air (large Rol Air compressors are domestic). But I prefer the dual-piston model because configuring things that way requires less RPM, hence less noise and more air output, at somewhat more weight and price. Plus the dual-piston style inherently works less hard and therefore lasts longer. And it's what I advised Rol-Air to provide in the first place, once the handwriting was on the wall with respect to the demise of Thomas' Midwest factory, where all the little ones were built. After my retirement, that inside track dissolved.

[Paul Ron]

Looks like there are many models of those.

For me, an oil free cheap Porter Cable nailer compressor does everything I need.

Blow off negs, cameras, whatever, fill my tires and use my nailers.

You can add a dryer and regulator to any compressor.

I stuck mine in the furnace closet and leave it on 24/7 with lines to my bathroom darkroom and to my front door for tire filling.

any compressor will do. Just be sure to put on a dryer filter trap.

Porter cable compressors are the best on the market. Mine were used very heavily for construction since 1980 and is still working like new. Maybe Porter cable quality has gone down over the years? I still see them everywhere being used by many contractors and builders.

Maybe the problems are with oil less compressors?... those are all junk. Just use a dryer n moisture trap to filter the oil n dust.



.

[Drew Wiley]

Porter Cable has always been utter junk in terms of compressors, some of the worst, and falsely labeled in terms of rated output. They were quite late in that particular game anyway. I refused to sell them, and we held the regional service contract with Porter Cable! Put two and two together. Weren't even worth fixing. Mostly overheated burnt out cheap pumps and strained toy motors. The only reason you see "contractors" using them is because they've been shopping at the Cheapo Depot kind of places that only offer junk. A second and more logical reason is that so much gear gets stolen from work sites or abused by casual labor that it's considered expendable.

As a company, Porter Cable has been dead quite awhile now. They took a terrible nose dive in the early 70's when Rockwell purchased them and ruined the quality; and then once they broke free again, it took another 18 yrs to get their reputation back, just to have the stupidest CEO I ever met dropped in at the top after Bosch USA fired him. Now it's just a pirated label plastered on bait and switch import stuff. The factories in the South closed down around a couple decades ago, and much of the surrounding county fell into pot growing. Now some of those old warehouses and factory buildings have been reclaimed by newer industries, including a US Ikea plant (almost totally mechanized, so nowhere near the answer to job loss per se, but at least something positive). Porter Cable is now a very minor holding of Stanley/B&D/DeWalt, which is not US owned anymore either.

You are also distinctly wrong about ALL oilless compressors being junk. Junk oilless compressors are junk, not well-designed ones. I gave an oilless Thomas 40 years of hard daily use in my own shop and darkroom facility. The tank finally rusted through, but the motor and pump are still doing fine. Maybe someday I'll stumble onto a new tank for cheap or free. In the meantime, I have two other Thomas oilless units - one for the darkroom complex, the other for my own remodel and construction purposes. Please keep in mind that I've been outright given high-end construction compressors for sake of review. I've designed others; and those earned their reputation for long haul reliability . Sold thousands and thousands. So there must be a good reason I do oilless for my own use. Oil and mist separators are of course available. But for darkroom and film use, I don't want any kind of risk. I have three stages of micro-filtration. But even the inside of an ordinary air hose or air nozzle can spatter oily contaminants if they haven't been thoroughly purged first. And mere filters don't remove all moisture. You need a gravity as well as condensation collection system in place. ...

And that brings me back to why compressors designed ala Porter Cable are so wretched for these kinds of purposes. All that clamshell type plastic housing around them is a dead giveaway. It's an attempt to control the noise of a very inefficient system. Because the pumps are so cheaply made, they need either the motor RPM or V-belt ratio to be revved way up in order to force more air out. But the cure is worse than the disease. That baffling further traps in the already excessive heat build-up, thereby greatly increasing water condensation and premature rust in the tank itself, as well as in the air line. And there is not even an effective cooling coil external to that. I could go on and on. No need.

[John Layton]

Got a 30gallon/175maxpsi/6cfm/min@90psi Huskey from HD awhile back...while "too big" for my otherwise huge v-groove ceiling project, I could nail all day and the thing wouldn't need to recharge. Could nail for several days without it coming on. Other ostensible use for this was to soda-blast my 944 engine/components during my recent rebuild. Turns out that this "big-ass" compressor is way too small for that purpose. In the meantime I find it really useful for all kinds of stuff.

If I did lots of picture framing I'd get a framing/nailgun for sure, but otherwise I don't use my compressor for anything photo-related. A pancake or other small compressor would be more suited for this (for blowing out holders, etc.).

Pancake compressors are indeed compact...but depending on their use they tend to activate rather frequently and can be noisy. When I opened this post...and noted Mr. Can's mention of keeping one of these in a closet, always on...my first thought was "how do you get any sleep?"

[Tin Can]

That nailer Porter Cable seldom ran in that closet, as I had no air leaks, I slept in the same one room studio, I used it alot as nailer when I blacked out a wall of window with pine, then Gas Burst

No matter what Mr Know it all says, I really like my 2 CALIFORNIA AIR TOOLS CAT-1P1060SP GAL 56DB Air Compressor (https://www.amazon.com/California-Air-Tools-CAT-1P1060SP-Compressor/dp/B077CNLPBC/ref=sxin_13_pa_sp_search_thematic_sspa?crid=3OUDK7AKMLZX6&cv_ct_cx=california+air+compressor+ultra+quiet&dchild=1&keywords=california+air+compressor+ultra+quiet&pd_rd_i=B077CNLPBC&pd_rd_r=5674e89c-1720-4692-94e6-
729275ea7014&pd_rd_w=TcMTj&pd_rd_wg=hxhsa&pf_rd_p=223a47dc-bb00-4156-be50-d6ca802a37dd&pf_rd_r=GJZKXNJXFW23JS522VB9&qid=1631190398&sr=1-2-a73d1c8c-2fd2-4f19-aa41-2df022bcb241-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyS0FLUTRIUTUxMk0mZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA0NDk0MjA4WEgzOEhJVElFUkkmZW5jcnlwdGVkQWRJZD1BMDA3MTQ5MTFUS1ZETFBUTjhHME4md2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9zZWFyY2hfdGhlbWF0aWMmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl)

One is in my huge shed where I turn it off most of the time

The other is now in my furnace room and feeds to DR through a wall, it never is turned off and I never hear it

It is primarily for Gas Burst Tanks to develop film and a few puffs to move dust to a new location

If I need a tool, I buy it and DIY everything since birth

[Paul Ron]

also be sure to purge the tanks of water condensate or your tanks will rust.

[Tin Can]

I used to sell air compressors

Twice I have seen big compressors burst into flame or electric fork trucks in a huge factory full of cardboard

I was on the voluntary response team, punch press hands were the worst

My job was playing with 120 psi gasoline inside the factory...

[John Layton]

...you still have all ten fingers?

[Drew Wiley]

Portable compressors are really in a different category than industrial ones. And most of those have now capitulated to lower quality import status. Tin Can - I already posted that the Cal Air Tool compressor you like is made by the same outfit in China as the JC-21 Rol-Air; they even offer their own identical one, just a different paint color and logo on it. I saw all that stuff from day one, even basically commissioned it.

Husky is another brand too contemptuous to even spit on, as far as I'm concerned. Sears once had the most egregiously false-rated compressors, so bad in fact that the Feds pounced on them, which almost never happens. How do you get 7 HP output out of a simple 115V wall plug in? Getting up 1-1/2 HP is hard enough. That was the whole name of the game to begin with - getting portable compressors to work when remodeling older home circuits.

[Tin Can]

China makes lots of very good stuff

We are going to miss the good old days

My latest bench just went up 40% in 2 weeks

I am buying stuff as fast a I can....... on purpose

You snooze you lose

We can sleep when we are dead

[Jody_S]

The cheapo pancake (or other style) compressors have their purpose. If you regularly go to jobsites with a small compressor for finishing woodwork, you really don't want to haul around a cast iron oil-bath compressor with a 50 gal tank that will outlive you. You need something small, light, that won't spill oil all over your van if it falls over, and that will last a couple of years of daily non-continuous use. You can find such an animal at any big box hardware store, often on sale for around $100. But even these are overkill for a home darkroom, and they're noisy and have terrible vibration. But they will work on a standard power outlet and should last +10 years of occasional darkroom use. My contractor compressor is now 20 years old.

Unfortunately for darkroom needs, anything smaller than those pancake compressors tends to be utter garbage. I've had a succession of cheapo (new CAD$60 or so) small compressors in my office, none has lasted 2 years of very occasional use. These have tiny 1/10 - 1/5 hp motors spinning as fast as they can make them. They have compressor heads with plastic sleeves guaranteed to overheat and wear out prematurely, and that's if the motor doesn't self-destruct first. I tried getting a name brand airbrush compressor (Gast?), which is a wonderful machine for airbrush work but won't blow out dust and grime with enough force. I finally broke down the vacuum/power unit from a scrapped scanning electron microscope for a tiny Japanese pancake compressor (1/6hp - 1/2gal) that is whisper quiet and built to above military grade spec. I can have it running beside my desk and barely notice. I would like to switch the tank on it or at least add an auxiliary tank, as I frequently have to wait for it to catch up when I'm cleaning something nasty, and of course telling anyone all of this is useless unless you also have parts of a SEM lying about in your garage. So I can't really recommend a decent small darkroom compressor to anyone, I don't know of any.

[Tin Can]

Well so be it

Mine are good

When members keep hammering that nothing works and all is garbage, we fail each other

Some eat fast food, some cook all their own meals, others eat at expensive restaurants

I have been all 3 of those

I really dislike canned air

I have hand pumps for my bicycles, even a 50 year old Silca, I bought new

[Jody_S]

My point, I guess, was that there are excellent quality small air compressors out there for a variety of scientific and industrial purposes. They just aren't sold in big box stores. I have no idea where one might find such an animal at darkroom prices other than specialty surplus outlets.

Sent from my LM-G900 using Tapatalk

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah, the decline in good ones, at least in portable sizes, has been disappointing. Some corporations like DeWalt are great at marketing but offer relatively poor products; others, like the Thomas portable division, had a good product line but terrible marketing habits. They were a real pain to do business with, or even to reach, just a neglected step-daughter of Thomas Industrial. The better construction units were once made by Emglo, all oiled. But they were stuck in their own ways and wouldn't help with the problem very common in urban areas back then of undersized main residential circuits. Gas compressors were a noise no-no. We initially had our own branded compressors built locally using Curtis V-pumps, but simply couldn't get enough, so started working with Rol-Air and built the prototypes of those in our own shop, volt-meter in-line and all. These had to run nail guns reliably (not just a paint gun or tire filler, which don't require that kind of sustained higher pressures).

That formula worked out for quite awhile, about 35 yrs. But all the junk brands of nail guns started flooding the market at the home center level. A twenty year lifespan gun with intermittent repairs now had to compete with an unrepairable six-month lifespan gun at half the price, along with package deals with equally cheap compressors. Fine for building a doghouse. But idiot construction crews would use those to punch a nail into the wood, and then come back with a ordinary hammer to get it all the way in whenever the pressure dropped. Penny-wise, pound foolish, or PSI foolish in this case.

I'm not against less expensive stuff, Tin Can. But what is less expensive - buying one compressor that lasts 20 years for $400, or buying 20 for $150 apiece that last only 6 months each, apples to apples usage-wise? Same reason I wear thousand dollar custom hiking boots - they're the real bargain if you factor in their usable, repairable lifespan. Last pair of those lasted me 30 years and at least six resoles. Store bought at $200 per pr would last about 2 yrs at most under the same conditions. Multiply $200 times 15 and that's three times the price, not even factoring inflation over that period of time.

[Michael R]

Ok I know nothing about hiking, but I have to ask why one would want to keep any kind of footwear for more than a few years, let alone 30 years. Isn’t that, you know, really gross?


Yeah, the decline in good ones, at least in portable sizes, has been disappointing. Some corporations like DeWalt are great at marketing but offer relatively poor products; others, like the Thomas portable division, had a good product line but terrible marketing habits. They were a real pain to do business with, or even to reach, just a neglected step-daughter of Thomas Industrial. The better construction units were once made by Emglo, all oiled. But they were stuck in their own ways and wouldn't help with the problem very common in urban areas back then of undersized main residential circuits. Gas compressors were a noise no-no. We initially had our own branded compressors built locally using Curtis V-pumps, but simply couldn't get enough, so started working with Rol-Air and built the prototypes of those in our own shop, volt-meter in-line and all. These had to run nail guns reliably (not just a paint gun or tire filler, which don't require that kind of sustained higher pressures).

That formula worked out for quite awhile, about 35 yrs. But all the junk brands of nail guns started flooding the market at the home center level. A twenty year lifespan gun with intermittent repairs now had to compete with an unrepairable six-month lifespan gun at half the price, along with package deals with equally cheap compressors. Fine for building a doghouse. But idiot construction crews would use those to punch a nail into the wood, and then come back with a ordinary hammer to get it all the way in whenever the pressure dropped. Penny-wise, pound foolish, or PSI foolish in this case.

I'm not against less expensive stuff, Tin Can. But what is less expensive - buying one compressor that lasts 20 years for $400, or buying 20 for $150 apiece that last only 6 months each, apples to apples usage-wise? Same reason I wear thousand dollar custom hiking boots - they're the real bargain if you factor in their usable, repairable lifespan. Last pair of those lasted me 30 years and at least six resoles. Store bought at $200 per pr would last about 2 yrs at most under the same conditions. Multiply $200 times 15 and that's three times the price, not even factoring inflation over that period of time.

[Pieter]

Ok I know nothing about hiking, but I have to ask why one would want to keep any kind of footwear for more than a few years, let alone 30 years. Isn’t that, you know, really gross?

No, it's not. It is how things used to be.

[Paul Ron]

Ok I know nothing about hiking, but I have to ask why one would want to keep any kind of footwear for more than a few years, let alone 30 years. Isn’t that, you know, really gross?

because it takes at least a year to break in good leather hiking boots.

[Tin Can]

I am a shoe nut

I keep almost all shoes

JIC

I recently got really nice boots, wrong size, unreturnable, they will be donated in the box, locally, anonymously

[John Layton]

Ha! Just yesterday I noticed the array of shoes placed in front of my chair...a pair of Solomon light hikers (got'm for half price!) which I wear into town and for walks, my old chewed up Moabs which are now work shoes, a new(ish) pair of Tevas for when it gets hot and/or after hours deck lounging (also great for the darkroom), a pair of older, cracked "work Teva's" which I just cannot seem to get rid of, a pair of slippers, and a pair of Peter Limmer's custom hiking boots (pricy, yes...but will last forever).

Thing is...there are days that, depending on the number and nature of activities - I will wear every single pair of those shoes, and thus they end up surrounding my chair!

219528

(jeeesh...how did we get from air compressors to shoes?)

[Drew Wiley]

Yes, it takes a long time to break in good store-bought hiking boots. The custom ones are made to fit from the start, so fit correctly from the get-go. I also have badly deformed feet, so there's that issue too. And quality footwear can easily become a life and death issue in the mountains. What is really gross, Michael, is frostbitten feet and a decaying body somewhere in the woods when someone's overpriced glorified designer tennis shoes sold as hiking shoes couldn't handle even two inches of unexpected snowfall. Not hypothetical at all. Seems to happen to someone every year; or a twisted ankle. I remember one October when over twenty people had to be helicopter rescued due to that kind of substandard footwear and a very light snowstorm, some of them just a few miles from the road.

How did we get here? My fault. I compared the cost benefit of purchasing good compressors and other tools up front to good boots. Cheap ones are false economy. I use my little Thomas compressor not only for the darkroom, but the whole cabinet shop, fence building, re-roofing (hopefully no more of that at my age now) - but not framing nailers - need something bigger than that. Overall, quite a bargain, especially since, factoring inflation, the junk ones cost more than I originally paid apiece for those.

[Michael R]

Ha! Just yesterday I noticed the array of shoes placed in front of my chair...a pair of Solomon light hikers (got'm for half price!) which I wear into town and for walks, my old chewed up Moabs which are now work shoes, a new(ish) pair of Tevas for when it gets hot and/or after hours deck lounging (also great for the darkroom), a pair of older, cracked "work Teva's" which I just cannot seem to get rid of, a pair of slippers, and a pair of Peter Limmer's custom hiking boots (pricy, yes...but will last forever).

Thing is...there are days that, depending on the number and nature of activities - I will wear every single pair of those shoes, and thus they end up surrounding my chair!

219528

(jeeesh...how did we get from air compressors to shoes?)

My fault :) I thought Drew was crazy to keep a pair of boots for 30 years even if they are $1,000 precision-machined whatever.

[Michael R]

Oh I don't doubt there are morons who go into the high country wearing Nikes. But surely there's a happy medium - footwear for a few hundred dollars that will do the job but only last a few years.

On the other hand something tells me you have a one-off special machine that can disinfect and de-grossify old hiking boots.

Anyhow, back to the air compressors.


Yes, it takes a long time to break in good store-bought hiking boots. The custom ones are made to fit from the start, so fit correctly from the get-go. I also have badly deformed feet, so there's that issue too. And quality footwear can easily become a life and death issue in the mountains. What is really gross, Michael, is frostbitten feet and a decaying body somewhere in the woods when someone's overpriced glorified designer tennis shoes sold as hiking shoes couldn't handle even two inches of unexpected snowfall. Not hypothetical at all. Seems to happen to someone every year; or a twisted ankle. I remember one October when over twenty people had to be helicopter rescued due to that kind of substandard footwear and a very light snowstorm, some of them just a few miles from the road.

How did we get here? My fault. I compared the cost benefit of purchasing good compressors and other tools up front to good boots. Cheap ones are false economy. I use my little Thomas compressor not only for the darkroom, but the whole cabinet shop, fence building, re-roofing (hopefully no more of that at my age now) - but not framing nailers - need something bigger than that. Overall, quite a bargain, especially since, factoring inflation, the junk ones cost more than I originally paid apiece for those.

[rdenney]

I’m using one of those Viair pumps that cruisers use for the air suspensions on their cars as the compressor for the air suspension on my old GMC motorhome. It’s worked reliably for a decade in dirty service. Currently available for under a coupla hunnert as a complete kit. 12 volts, though. Service parts are still available, too.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210910/0afa2cf22e423a99c1c09df3a35f37ab.jpg


For blowing dust around, however, I use a foot-operated bellows.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210910/727a76e6685417e9cce2ca18bae9d40c.jpg
Works fine and it’s cheap.

The trick with these is a well-filtered intake. The Viair pump comes with that.

(Just bought a pair of Lowa GTX boots that don’t really need breaking in.)

Rick “the Viair outperforms Thomas suspension pumps of old, at least for that purpose” Denney

[Drew Wiley]

That's just a pump, Rick, not a compressor. Sure it will deliver pulses of air sufficient to clean film, but doesn't have any regulated pressure reservoir or tank. I've sometimes used something analogous for travel purposes, namely, a little unregulated airbrush "compressor"; but that kind of thing wouldn't work as any kind of all-around lab or shop source. Better than canned air, at least.

Makes me laugh, however. Remember a fellow spending half his evening leveling out the RV; and each time he thought he got it right, the wife would yell out from inside again. Then he finally got it done, and fired up a generator to try to get TV reception. Don't know why they decided to park right next to me in an otherwise completely empty campground. I got up and drove to the other side.

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh, Michael. Maybe you should stick to hiking in the Alps, where you can either start or end at a rotating restaurant atop a peak connected to the main town with a tram line. That way you can just go into any shop you wish the same evening and get a new pair of shoes if used ones disgust you. Isn't that what the Russian Prime Minister Medvedev does - allegedly never wears the same pair of shoes twice, always a new pair, especially of branded sports shoes? I thought all of you jet setters did that. Maybe that's why you vacation at Chamonix and Monte Carlo. But where do you daily find new leather bellows for your camera? Wouldn't it be kinda hypocritically gross and disgusting if those things weren't replaced too the moment they got sweaty?

[Jody_S]

If your camera bellows are getting sweaty, you might be doing something wrong.

Sent from my LM-G900 using Tapatalk

[Tin Can]

Ugh


Gosh, Michael. Maybe you should stick to hiking in the Alps, where you can either start or end at a rotating restaurant atop a peak connected to the main town with a tram line. That way you can just go into any shop you wish the same evening and get a new pair of shoes if used ones disgust you. Isn't that what the Russian Prime Minister Medvedev does - allegedly never wears the same pair of shoes twice, always a new pair, especially of branded sports shoes? I thought all of you jet setters did that. Maybe that's why you vacation at Chamonix and Monte Carlo. But where do you daily find new leather bellows for your camera? Wouldn't it be kinda hypocritically gross and disgusting if those things weren't replaced too the moment they got sweaty?

[Michael R]

Ah I’m one step ahead of you on that one - only synthetic bellows for me. :)


Gosh, Michael. Maybe you should stick to hiking in the Alps, where you can either start or end at a rotating restaurant atop a peak connected to the main town with a tram line. That way you can just go into any shop you wish the same evening and get a new pair of shoes if used ones disgust you. Isn't that what the Russian Prime Minister Medvedev does - allegedly never wears the same pair of shoes twice, always a new pair, especially of branded sports shoes? I thought all of you jet setters did that. Maybe that's why you vacation at Chamonix and Monte Carlo. But where do you daily find new leather bellows for your camera? Wouldn't it be kinda hypocritically gross and disgusting if those things weren't replaced too the moment they got sweaty?

[Drew Wiley]

Bellows deodorant? Don't darkcloths get stinky too? Gosh, not many candidates for Scythian warrior horsemen here, who once they earned they leather suits, allegedly never changed them. Any candidates for the manned Mars mission and its three year round trip to the next washing machine?

On an expedition to the Arctic, my nephew didn't even remove his boots for three months straight - couldn't. When he finally got back to the seacoast port on Baffin Island, they charged him sixty dollars for a shower. Fuel ships only got through the ice once a year. But maybe there was another reason too. He'd always laugh at me in the mountains because I bathed every evening, even if it was in ice water by moonlight. So I'd never make a good true expedition type myself to really cold places like the Arctic or Himalayas. Now I wake up smelling like a cat anyway. They always sneak in and jump on the bed. And it's really annoying when they decide to nap on the clean laundry pile. But heck - at least they know how to bathe themselves without water. Maybe they should be on the Mars mission instead of humans.

[Michael R]

Bellows deodorant? Don't darkcloths get stinky too? Gosh, not many candidates for Scythian warrior horsemen here, who once they earned they leather suits, allegedly never changed them. Any candidates for the manned Mars mission and its three year round trip to the next washing machine?

On an expedition to the Arctic, my nephew didn't even remove his boots for three months straight - couldn't. When he finally got back to the seacoast port on Baffin Island, they charged him sixty dollars for a shower. Fuel ships only got through the ice once a year. But maybe there was another reason too. He'd always laugh at me in the mountains because I bathed every evening, even if it was in ice water by moonlight. So I'd never make a good true expedition type myself to really cold places like the Arctic or Himalayas. Now I wake up smelling like a cat anyway. They always sneak in and jump on the bed. And it's really annoying when they decide to nap on the clean laundry pile. But heck - at least they know how to bathe themselves without water. Maybe they should be on the Mars mission instead of humans.

There's a round trip planned now? The last Mars trip I looked into was "Mars One" which was a one way suicide mission.

Honestly, humans leaving Earth is the dumbest thing ever.

[Tin Can]

But there's GOLD in them there planerts, moony and astereeckd

Many may be forced to get off this wastyland

I sure hope I daid by theme thers times

no worries



There's a round trip planned now? The last Mars trip I looked into was "Mars One" which was a one way suicide mission.

Honestly, humans leaving Earth is the dumbest thing ever.

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah, time is running out. Should start ruining other planets a thousand times faster than we ruined this one. Total Recall.

Yes, there are some downsides, like trying to compress air that's only 1% as thick. But look at the bright side - with far less gravity you could carry a really big ULF camera. It would just need real big knobs for sake of space gloves. A grain magnifier would need to be built into your helmet visor. Dust might be a major issue. But heck, the camera could double as a solar energy screen platform, and the bellows as a landing cushion for the craft in the first place. Coming up with enough water to develop and rinse film might be an issue; but heck, what else is recycled piss good for, except drinking too? But no real pioneer like Timothy O Sullivan would carry a digital back; that would be cheating. What's the sense of going to Mars in the first place unless a real view camera is along?