I need a cheap but functional solution to keep the water out of my air lines. We have a decent compressor, don't recall the specs at the moment but after running the sandblaster for awhile it clogs up with moisture and gets frustrating. I put a small $30 water trap right on the inlet of the blaster but it does little good. Whats the next step without spending a lot of coin? links to parts or pictures would be welcome.

Humidity from the outside air comes out when air is compressed. Having compressor air intake from a conditioned room is better.

Home HVAC has already removed some of the moisture, so this is a start. Other methods include adding a descciant chamber and/or water separator.

Generally routine maintaince keeping the tank drained makes a big diff.
I put a small $30 water trap right on the inlet of the blaster but it does little good
A $30 trap with high humidity and high air volume will not do the job...and should be located closer to the compressor tank top prevent condesation in your lines....
if u put where u have it, the wet warm air comes out of the tank, then consenses and drops as 'puddles' in the lower parts of the air lines.
OR
After the compressor tank, install a 2nd tank preferably with a couple meters away with pipe as large as possible...This allows the air to cool and water to consence in the bottom , then what is left filter.
Install the 2nd tank vertically with the exit at the top and and inlet 1/4 to 1/2 up the side, and drain plug at the bottom.

A cheap solution is coil about 10ft of hose in a cold tub of water and place a water trap or separator just after it. Always drain the Water from the tank before using. Never use an Oiler on lines you use for Sand Blasting or Painting.

What I did was find some old Compressor Manifold lines with the Radiator Fins (looks something like an Electric Base Board Heater). Compressor repair Shops have them all over the place and usually throw them out. I did a little plumbing with threaded 1/2 and 3/4" Conduit and built a Rad with 4 Parallel runners and put a Water Trap on the exit Manifold followed by a water separator. The System worked great.

If you could find some used black or galvanized pipe and run a bunch of that to cool down the hot air coming out of your compressor, that would help a lot.

Rob

Something like this. http://www.1969supersport.com/draw1.html

Rob

I wrote this up for another forum two nights ago, it might give you a little better understanding on how this airline business works, moisture in a sandblaster is the pits, it can be really aggravating.

Anyway if your up for it here it is.



With galvanized pipe you have galvinization inside the pipe, that could plug up a regulator or filters.

Also black pipe will rust inside, but I think the rust is the lesser of the two evils.

Whichever you use might be a wash, but my experience with black pipe has been really good.

So lets get down to the basics here, the heat from the compressor heats the air going into the pipe, as it cools it turns to water, so, we know have either rusty water or pieces of galvinized flakes going with it.

Our main concern here is trying to get long life out of our air pressure regulator, and most important is to keep rust or flakes or water out of our paint gun or air tool, or keeping the moisture out of our sandblaster pot.

Water will take the rust and flakes with it, and this is one of the things that will eventually do an air tool in.

So, we plumb our air lines on a taper so we don't have any flat spots, (where water can lay in the pipe).

At the bottom of these lines we put in drains to get rid of the rusty water or flakes.

In order to cool the hot air you put in a minimum of 50' of pipe, 75 to 100' would be better, then your pretty sure of your air coming out at more of a room temperature if possible, I probably shouldn't use room temperature.

At the end of this long run of pipe, thats where you put your filters. You will still have some water and rust or flakes or whatever coming into this first filter.

I use an f-88 sharpe filter, but no doubt there might be some out there a lot better then the f-88s, but these work good.

At the end of my long pipe run, I have three f-88s one after the other right in line.

These f-88s have a white stone type filter in them.

A couple of years ago my compressor bit the big one, so I changed it out.

So I took out the stone filter in all three of them, the first filter was pretty brown looking, the second one was a little tinge of brown coloring to it, and the third one was almost snow white, and mind you they have been in three quite a long time, I never have to change them out, only did because the compressor let go.

Now if i would have had galvanized pipe, would the flakes have gotten through to it, I don't have a clue on that, maybe or maybe not.

Heres another thing, I have been buying air tools since 1980, anyway I bought a bunch of them that year, thats 28 years ago, some of these air tools are just average priced air tools, not expensive but not the cheapest either, anyway, the only air tool i have ever replaced was a metal crimper and a couple of good napa air ratchets, worked them to death, they were good ratchets.

I counted my air tools the other day, because I haven't been working in the garage, I would give each one about three drops of air tool oil every 3 or 4 moths, and run them a few seconds, this is a good thing to do if you don't use them on a regular basis.

Anyway a couple of times I oiled them I forgot about one in my regular tool box, so I count them now, theres 23 of them and they all work just fine.

Did these 3 f-88s filters and a good set of tapered air lines keep these tools this good for that long, maybe, I'm not out there every day, but they have gotten a lot of use over the years.

Would galvanized or copper or whatever air lines have been better, maybe.

I'm 66 years old and can still work pretty good, so i still use these tools today. As you get older you don't get any smarter, maybe you get dumber, probably, buy older guys have seen more s**t happen, so you learn over the years if something works really good, its best to leave it alone, in most circumstances anyway.

I've set here and beat the drum on the black iron pipe and how i like it, but if something works good, you know the deal.

Hooking up a good set of air lines takes some planning and a little researching, the extra time looking at different setups will save you time and I would bet a good amount of money, in air tool life and wasted paint.

I'm not real sure on copper lines and how they cool compared to black pipe, maybe there better and probably rust free, but there are other things with copper that need to be looked at, but the galvanized or black pipe will take a little more punishment then the copper.

Running long lines of pipe and keeping it from leaking is a job. If you take a small wire brush and clean all your pipe connections with that and some lacquer thinner, you will have a lot less chance of a leak.

I use pipe dope or tape, it doesn't matter, I probably have about 150 or 175' feet of pipe run in all different directions, with zero leaks, but it took me a while to get it that way.

Its going to take you a while to run it, but once its in you can forget about it, and if you run it right you don't need an air dryer, I run a couple of sand blasters and a fairly large bead blaster, and I don't have a moisture problem with silica sand, and thats the worst stuff you can run if you have any moisture in your lines.

The air line drawing I put up a couple of post before this, gives a decent overview on how to run your lines without flat spots, hopefully somebody can get some good out of it.

You will see some mention of automatic drains on filters, for a commercial body shop thats probably a good deal, but as a hobbist, you might want to get the ones with the little wingnut, drain it at the end of the day, and check your finger tips, if it feels slippery something let loose in your compressor, and this could save you some major airline redoing to get the oil out, don't ask me how I know this.

I was pretty long winded on this, sorry about that, but if just one of you read it and get anything out of it, I guess it was worth it.

I will say this though, galvanized or copper might be better, but this black pipe works good for me.

Heres that drawing again, its about four feet long, thats the reason for the sections. http://www.1969supersport.com/draw1.html

Rob
_________________

Heres some pictures associated with the previous drawing, no flat spots in the line coming out of the compressor or going into a bank of three filters.

http://www.1969supersport.com/paintroom21.html

Theres probably around 75' of 3/4'' black pipe run down the wall and back before it goes into the bank of filters that trap the remaining water

Rob

Surprised nobody else has mentioned it yet, Desiccant Snake. Its an inline air dryer, and is a cheap and pretty effective method for removing water from the line. I suffer from high humidity and water in the hose and once we added this to the line just before the air tool it made a big difference. Run that snake just before the cheap water trap you have attached to the sand blaster, so the snake will handle most of the water and the trap should get the rest.

A cheap solution is coil about 10ft of hose in a cold tub of water and place a water trap or separator just after it. Always drain the Water from the tank before using. Never use an Oiler on lines you use for Sand Blasting or Painting.

What I did was find some old Compressor Manifold lines with the Radiator Fins (looks something like an Electric Base Board Heater). Compressor repair Shops have them all over the place and usually throw them out. I did a little plumbing with threaded 1/2 and 3/4" Conduit and built a Rad with 4 Parallel runners and put a Water Trap on the exit Manifold followed by a water separator. The System worked great.

I would like to find that stuff new but in my many google searches over the years I have never come up with anything.

I just got on of these. its getting hooked up today.
Right around $100.
http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?itemID=10886&itemType=PRODUCT

I'm gunna give the snake a try - thanks for all the suggestions.

Parker has some great water traps. Google MSC and McMaster Carr.

The best would be a refrigerated air dryer system. I have used the cheap one from McMaster Carr and it works great for around 300$. Whatever you end up doing, plumb in a main drain far from the tank as possible then do a second extremely close to your tool. This is how my air is ran and i used 3/4 schedule 40 PVC, the thick stuff...Im running CNC machines and lots of shop equipment so water is a bad thing and this system simply works. My compressor runs 4 hrs a day at least

Parker has some great water traps. Google MSC and McMaster Carr.

The best would be a refrigerated air dryer system. I have used the cheap one from McMaster Carr and it works great for around 300$. Whatever you end up doing, plumb in a main drain far from the tank as possible then do a second extremely close to your tool. This is how my air is ran and i used 3/4 schedule 40 PVC, the thick stuff...Im running CNC machines and lots of shop equipment so water is a bad thing and this system simply works. My compressor runs 4 hrs a day at least

I would be a little leary about running pvc pipe, it will get brittle as it ages, you shouldn't weld near it, and if something hits it, it could shatter.

Also contamination getting inside of it, could compromise its integrity.

Rob

I'm gunna give the snake a try - thanks for all the suggestions.

How did it work out Casey?

Rob

Just received the snake today - will let you know after I have a chance to try it out.

Well, I finally got around to trying the snake. It worked great for about 30-45 minutes of use and then it must have been saturated by moisture as it was reducing air flow to my blaster so much that it could not keep up enough pressure. I had the AC on in the shop and ran a short line outside to blast on about an 75 degree morning. Our compressor really needs a drier system and then this snake might have been able to keep working for awhile. But with our current setup, it wasn't worth the $$. I had success after removign the snake and was able to finish blasting without the system plugging up. I used some Black Diamond media found at Tractor Supply that worked great.

Thats good you got it done:thumbsup:

Rob

Welcome to the new Tools and Shops forum.