Thomas Air Compressor

[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!

Attachment 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.




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


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.