Has any one added extra storage for an air compressor?

Thomas

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Has any one added extra storage for an air compressor?

I have this little monster below and I believe it should handle a lot of my sanding/painting this year. But the Tim Allen in me wants to add an extra storage tank for more power!

What the heck could I use and where would I find an extra storage tank for this compressor. I could take cast iron pipe and hook them together. If I can find something.

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http://xgarage.org/us_air.jpg
 

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The belt-drive motor on it certainly looks like it was intended to supply a larger tank... Have you tried places like Tractor Supply?

If you're doing this yourself with parts not manufactured for use with compressors, make sure you have a drain valve on it - I couldn't believe how much rusty soup poured out of one of mine when I started to notice it not holding as much air as it should...
 
just find someone that has an old bombed out compressor that is just "throwing" it away, connect your tank to the new old tank and you will have extra capacity
 
She doesn't fill up very fast and shut off. The motor is set up for for 110 atm. It does has the provisions to switch it over to 220. I think when I get her running on 220 it will be much faster. At least I hope so.

Tractor supply is a great idea and one of the stores is pretty close by. I kept thinking about adding like an 02 welding tank to the system. I can't say I remember them having a knock out on them to couple up to.

This thing doesn't have a drain valve of any kind that I remember. It also only has those two knock out's. They are half way up the tank so I am not so sure a drain valve would work very well that high. It makes me wonder how the heck the previous owner drained it out.


Anyway I bought a Mac d/a tonight and three rolls of 80/120/220 from fleabay so im set to get busy sanding on a lot of my babies this spring.

I just want to get this http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...OpyOsKuSg&sig2=wONLdhBu2ojZsaukXhsk2Q&cad=rjaantique up to snuff for the summer. The first thing I would like to do is get it all cleaned up and paint it! Man it looks bad...
 
just find someone that has an old bombed out compressor that is just "throwing" it away, connect your tank to the new old tank and you will have extra capacity

I hear ya on this one but time is getting short. I am willing to buy a tank just need to find a place to get one.
 
...This thing doesn't have a drain valve of any kind that I remember. It also only has those two knock out's. They are half way up the tank so I am not so sure a drain valve would work very well that high. It makes me wonder how the heck the previous owner drained it out...

You can always put a male connector and 'retrofit' your hoses to accomodate... Of course, I only ever used this method to drain the tank of air, never to pour rusty water through the regulator. I did leave it open during storage, if it's any consolation.
 
The extra tank will only give you a little bit of extra storage. If you are using a constant amount of air, as in painting, the tank will only help a little to begin with, then the pump has to put out enough or more cfm than the tool you are using. So if you plan to do any sandblasting the first thing is to determine your nozzle size, that will dictate how much cfm you are going to need.
 
The extra tank will only give you a little bit of extra storage. If you are using a constant amount of air, as in painting, the tank will only help a little to begin with, then the pump has to put out enough or more cfm than the tool you are using. So if you plan to do any sandblasting the first thing is to determine your nozzle size, that will dictate how much cfm you are going to need.

Yup..he's right. You want a compressor with a decent tank size, but what is important is the CFM rating.. I was told to look at the "___ CFM at 90PSI" rating.
 
i dont believe sand blasting is part of this equation he said he bought a D/A sander, but what you say about the added tank i understand.

the electric motor running on 220 would be alot more efficient than running on 110, i dont know that it would actually make it turn faster
 
i dont believe sand blasting is part of this equation he said he bought a D/A sander, but what you say about the added tank i understand.

the electric motor running on 220 would be alot more efficient than running on 110, i dont know that it would actually make it turn faster

It wouldn't.
 
You can tell I don't know jack about ac compressors! I am learning and was hoping that 220 might help in the recovery time between sprays. I will get a good feel for this 70+ year old compressor in a few weeks. I hope it can handle all this sanding and painting I want to do cfm wise. Other wise it is going to end up on ebay for some old guy to put next to his old arse car. lol

I still need to buy some other stuff for it. I think I need all of this stuff too... Water separator/regulator/line filter Got any good tips on some middle of the road ones I could buy?

I guess what I am asking is what do I need to buy to get setup right since I have never done this before.

I found a 21.99 deal on 100ft of air hose today at lowes. Yea I know the cheap orange stuff. Strange enough we were also at the local farmers market where a guy was holding a brand new 50ft roll that he payed 25.00 for.

Damn I got double that for less than $25.00 today on the same crap...
 
main thing i run into with the hose is the diameter or potential flow of air, notice a huge difference in power with impacts, im sure probably with other air tools aswell that im not familiar with. i would change the oil in your compressor before using it
 
On hoses, run far, far away from the cheap HF ones, although they do stock an actual Goodyear hose, I've had mine for a few years now, it's probably outlasted the cheap one two or three times as long already.
 
Adding an additional tank on a 1 cylinder pump will turn out to be more frustrating than leaving it alone. Especially if you said it takes awhile for it to pump up it's own tank.
Adding a tank only give you a reserve on air before teh compressor has to kick back on again. Once it does, go get another drink, mow the lawn, and it may be pumped back up when you get back.
CFM is cubic feet/minute at any specific pressure that the system can supply to the tool. More pressure the quicker the CFM leaves the tank.
To run a DA, usually you would need at least a 20 gal tank with a 3 HP motor to keep up with it using a good minimum 3/8 hose not more than 50 feet long. The longer the hose the bigger CFM drop at the business end.
Setting up the unit on 220v will do nothing but make the utility bill a bit less, but nothing regarding pressure, pump time performance.

In a nut shell, I wouldn't waste the money buying an additional tank. Use it as-is until it gives up, then put out the money to buy a good compresor, not from HF, but maybe sears or grainger that will meet you CFM needs and last forever.
My Craftsman is still kicking after 25 years and I've used the heck out of it, but it is the old style compressor (uses oil in the crankcase) and not like the new Oil less ones which are cheap.

My $.02
 
I mentioned this in another thread, but I bought a used Craftsman oilless compressor that turned out to be a great buy, but the crack head looking couple that sold out lied about the condition of it. Got it home and the thing wouldn't pressure up. When I did the deal, I had turned it on, listened to it run, but it was at night, outside, and I didn't check to see that it was actually building pressure.

I showed up at this house in a bad part of town and 'husband wasn't home yet'. The wife came to the door dressed in a nightie looking big t-shirt, and seemed skeevy. After she put the giant dog in the house, I nervously went into the back yard and saw it in a rickety shed with no lights. I scanned around for meth lab stuff, but didn't see any. The guy gets home, shows me the compressor, etc..it was very clean, but he 'didn't need it.' In pulling it out of the shed, down a home made wooden plywood ramp, the guy slipped real quick right onto his back, like out of a cartoon. He laid there like he was dead for a second, then just groaned about his back. I gave him the cash and hurriedly loaded it up and left..

The cylinder/sleeve was scored and worn, the compression ring thing was completely trashed. Had to replace the cylinder/sleeve, compression ring, related o-rings. Seems like about $30/parts. Also added a nice valve on the bottom. The drains are usually garbage, even on the more expensive ones.

Point is, buy used for a great price, beware with oil-less that you may have to repair it.
 
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Point is, buy used for a great price, beware with oil-less that you may have to repair it.

Another thing to look out for is the noise difference between oil-less and cast-iron. The oil-less ones are (usually) considerably louder. I personally could get away with running my cast-iron compressor in the basement without complaint from my wife. But if I fired up an oil-less one, she wouldn't be too happy.

One more piece of advice: medium-sized compressors are almost useless. I learned this the hard way. They're too big to easily cart around when you want to use nail guns, but they generally don't have the CFMs to handle higher-consumption tools (HVLP guns, sanders, etc).

Now I've got three compressors: a portable emglow for all my nail gun needs, my original 30-lb compressor that I never use, and a "shop" compressor that will handle my paint guns, sanders and grinders.

(Note: you can get medium-sized compressors with high-cfm pumps on them, but they cost almost as much as a big shop-sized compressor. So unless you need semi-portability, I'd go with the shop size.)

-Jim
 
Point is, buy used for a great price

Oh, and I completely agree on this. I've had some friends pick up some _amazing_ good deals on used compressors, sometimes ones from auto shops. Most of them were made to be torn-down and serviced.

A friend of mine bought a 30-year-old emglow for less than half what I paid for mine. He had to replace the thermal-cutout breaker for a couple bucks.

-Jim
 
Schematics? ;)

Ha. Well, I'm not much of an artist, but here goes:

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At 120 PSI it would throw a pretty tight flame about 15 feet.

If you're wondering where to get gasoline pump hardware then I'd have to say, "Use your imagination; you're crazy enough to want a flame thrower, aren't you?"

I was a crazy kid.
 
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