PAToyota
07-18-2008, 01:04 PM
I’ve had my Quincy QT-5 stationary compressor for eight years now. It has been my only compressor and performs a variety of duties both in the downstairs automotive/metal shop as well as the upstairs woodworking shop and even around the rest of the property through the use of a couple Goodyear 100’ hoses.
Downstairs it runs some of the usual pneumatic tools - impact wrench, needle scaler, sanders - as well as supplying air to the plasma cutter, sandblasting cabinet, pressure pot sandblaster, and the more mundane tasks of inflating tires and using an air gun to blow dust off of things that I am working on.
Upstairs it again is used to supply air guns as well as finish and brad nailers and an airbrush.
Around the property it has been used for framing and roofing nailers, paint guns, and wherever else I might need an air supply. As I live in town on a quarter acre, the use of long air hoses hasn’t been too much of a problem as far as delivering air to the far corners of my property.
However, there have been occasions when family or friends have asked about me doing some work for them and the lack of a compressed air supply at their houses has been a limitation for me. Once it made sense to rent a portable compressor for the job at hand, but mostly I revert back to manual tools.
A couple more projects off site this past spring got me to thinking about portable air a bit more and I started looking into the available options. More often than not, I’m looking at something to run the pneumatic nailers away from my shop so I was mainly looking at the “hotdog” or “pancake” style carpenter’s compressors that you carry around as opposed to the larger “portable” compressors with a larger tank and wheels. I was also looking at electric models as I figured that transporting a gas model in the trunk of a car would be more of a problem as well as having to run it outside and then the requirement of lugging along longer hoses as opposed to setting up the compressor where I was working.
Browsing the local home improvement stores, I turned up a selection of air compressors from Bostitch, Campbell Hausfeld, Craftsman, DeWalt, Hitachi, Husky, Porter-Cable, and Rigid in the range of less than a half horsepower (mainly just for trim nailer use) up to 2 to 3 hp with 1 to 4 gallon tanks (after that you started seeing wheels). You can likely find compressors that still sort of fit into this category outside those parameters, but this describes the bulk of what I was seeing.
The other thing that I took note of was that the majority of these units are oil-less compressors. I have to admit that in general I am not a big fan of them as they tend to be noisier and shorter lived than a lubricated compressor.
Quite by accident, I checked out the Quincy website since I have been so pleased with my QT-5 - just to see if they had portable compressors or if they only stuck to the larger stationary models. On their website, I quickly found that they had their “Air Master” series of portable compressors in both electric and gas models from 1.5 to 8 hp with 4 to 17 gallon tanks (obviously, larger wheeled units with gas engines at the upper end). Of interest to me were their three “hand-carry” units. Two 2 hp electric units and a 4 hp Honda gas engine model.
I also found that they were running a contest to win one of their hand-carry units each month in 2008. I downloaded the brochure and filled out the registration for the contest while I was there just for the heck of it.
Then, I have to admit, I got busy with other things and the idea of a portable compressor got shoved to the back burner.
Imagine my surprise when one Monday morning while I was checking my e-mail I found a message from Quincy saying that I had won the previous month’s drawing for the compressor! And they say that Mondays bring you bad news...
I responded to the e-mail with my shipping information and warm thanks for their generosity. A bit over a week later my faithful UPS lady was lugging a large box up the front steps of my house.
The box contained a Quincy 121H4PNA 2.0 hp electric 4.3 gallon compressor, the air filter (shipped uninstalled due to packaging), an owner’s manual, and a small (just under) 12 fl. oz. bottle of Quin-Cip lubricant. I unpacked everything, read through the owner’s manual, filled the case with the oil, installed the air filter, and set about to trying the compressor out.
Downstairs it runs some of the usual pneumatic tools - impact wrench, needle scaler, sanders - as well as supplying air to the plasma cutter, sandblasting cabinet, pressure pot sandblaster, and the more mundane tasks of inflating tires and using an air gun to blow dust off of things that I am working on.
Upstairs it again is used to supply air guns as well as finish and brad nailers and an airbrush.
Around the property it has been used for framing and roofing nailers, paint guns, and wherever else I might need an air supply. As I live in town on a quarter acre, the use of long air hoses hasn’t been too much of a problem as far as delivering air to the far corners of my property.
However, there have been occasions when family or friends have asked about me doing some work for them and the lack of a compressed air supply at their houses has been a limitation for me. Once it made sense to rent a portable compressor for the job at hand, but mostly I revert back to manual tools.
A couple more projects off site this past spring got me to thinking about portable air a bit more and I started looking into the available options. More often than not, I’m looking at something to run the pneumatic nailers away from my shop so I was mainly looking at the “hotdog” or “pancake” style carpenter’s compressors that you carry around as opposed to the larger “portable” compressors with a larger tank and wheels. I was also looking at electric models as I figured that transporting a gas model in the trunk of a car would be more of a problem as well as having to run it outside and then the requirement of lugging along longer hoses as opposed to setting up the compressor where I was working.
Browsing the local home improvement stores, I turned up a selection of air compressors from Bostitch, Campbell Hausfeld, Craftsman, DeWalt, Hitachi, Husky, Porter-Cable, and Rigid in the range of less than a half horsepower (mainly just for trim nailer use) up to 2 to 3 hp with 1 to 4 gallon tanks (after that you started seeing wheels). You can likely find compressors that still sort of fit into this category outside those parameters, but this describes the bulk of what I was seeing.
The other thing that I took note of was that the majority of these units are oil-less compressors. I have to admit that in general I am not a big fan of them as they tend to be noisier and shorter lived than a lubricated compressor.
Quite by accident, I checked out the Quincy website since I have been so pleased with my QT-5 - just to see if they had portable compressors or if they only stuck to the larger stationary models. On their website, I quickly found that they had their “Air Master” series of portable compressors in both electric and gas models from 1.5 to 8 hp with 4 to 17 gallon tanks (obviously, larger wheeled units with gas engines at the upper end). Of interest to me were their three “hand-carry” units. Two 2 hp electric units and a 4 hp Honda gas engine model.
I also found that they were running a contest to win one of their hand-carry units each month in 2008. I downloaded the brochure and filled out the registration for the contest while I was there just for the heck of it.
Then, I have to admit, I got busy with other things and the idea of a portable compressor got shoved to the back burner.
Imagine my surprise when one Monday morning while I was checking my e-mail I found a message from Quincy saying that I had won the previous month’s drawing for the compressor! And they say that Mondays bring you bad news...
I responded to the e-mail with my shipping information and warm thanks for their generosity. A bit over a week later my faithful UPS lady was lugging a large box up the front steps of my house.
The box contained a Quincy 121H4PNA 2.0 hp electric 4.3 gallon compressor, the air filter (shipped uninstalled due to packaging), an owner’s manual, and a small (just under) 12 fl. oz. bottle of Quin-Cip lubricant. I unpacked everything, read through the owner’s manual, filled the case with the oil, installed the air filter, and set about to trying the compressor out.