Take care of your compressed air

Talk to the tool manufacturers and they’ll always agree: nothing kills air tools faster than dirty air. “Dirty” can mean anything from water, rust, scale, oil and, well, dirt. Filter-regulator-lubricator sets are a natural defense, but have you considered what your compressor is ingesting in the first place? Most installations use piped air from the outside, filtered with a simple pleated cotton or synthetic filter with screen. The trouble is, it’s outside, usually out back, and often overhead. The result is predictable: little or no maintenance. That filter is just as important as the air filters that you install in your customer’s engines, and lack of maintenance will have the same result: cylinder wall scoring, accelerated wear, and eventual blow-by, killing efficiency and contaminating the supply air. The solution is simple: CLEAN IT. For the common synthetic types, back blow loose debris and make a trip to the parts washer. Don’t forget to wash down the “hat” and hardware while you’re there, and do inspect for tears, gaps, distorted housings, and anything else that will allow air to bypass the filter assembly. Straighten bent or dented housings, and if you still can’t get a good seal, replace or use a bead of silicone to fill in the gaps. A good strategy is to keep two filters and swap, minimizing downtime (or unfiltered running time). Don’t forget to keep records of the service, in your equipment maintenance log, if you’re a sophisticated operation, or just with a piece of chalk on the wall next to the compressor. And don’t forget safety: For many installations, you’ll need a ladder to get to the filter, so anything you can do to make the change a one-handed operation is a safety plus. Consider brazing a T-handle to the wing nut, for example, and leashing it to the filter “hat”. That way, you can spin off the nut, then lift off the hat and filter with one hand without losing the wing nut. Or your temper.