Got air!

Found this draft with some good info. Photos are already in another so I removed them but I might as well post it as I did type it...

I have made some progress on the shop. I made a shelve out of the crates that my assembled emp was shipped in.

My first, ok not by a long shot but another blunder was that I saw Sears had a special with a 8” grinder that cam with a stand for about the same price as a 6” grinder without a stand, so of couse I got the 8” =) Well as it turns out the 8” does not have the standard ½” spinning shaft, rather a 5/8” shaft =( So now I had to find an adapter to make things work with a 6” scotch bright pad. The parts are in the mail, but if I was to do it again, stick with the 6” grinder.

I have noticed that a lot of the tools that Lowes and Home Depot sell are ok until you try to buy the sandpaper that they take, or get a new ban saw blade. I was in Lowes and when I asked the guy where I get the 8” sanding disks that the sander that he sold he looked at me and said that there should be a web address in the box but they don’t sell them. So make sure that what ever it is that you are buying has local support and replacement parts available as I don’t want to have to wait a week to get sandpaper.

Well the big baby, the compressor. I lucked out, I think. I wanted the Home Depot version but they were selling the Lowes for $100 less and I got 10% off on top of that so I went with the Kobalt.

I had to add a circuit breaker for the compressor. I went with a 30 amp and used #8 wire, yes a little over kill but this thing is not getting airborne. I ran the air lines with sch 40 PVC pipe and a host of NPT adapters to make it all work. I couldn’t bring myself to spend the money that Lowes wanted on regulators so I went to the trusty Harbor Freight and picked up some regulators for the job.

2 of the 3 regulators leaked but with a little Teflon and some big wrenches I fixed that. One of the gages reads about 10psi low so I will give it some time to see if it corrects it’s self or buy a new gauge. Still in all the parts look and feel the same as Lowes and I am sure that they are made next to each other in China. I bet one has better quality control but hey, I saved over 50%
Well off to pick up the drill press today and then maybe I will be able to start riveting this baby together.