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Old August 8th 08, 07:50 AM posted to rec.aviation.homebuilt
Morgans[_2_]
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Default Clarke sandblaster gun - moisture?


"Ernest Christley" wrote

Get the big, all-metal jobber from HF. It has a drain for any trapped
water. Set you back $20 or so, but I have it bolted to the side of my
compressor cart. The instances where you want water droplets in your
compressed air are few and very far between.


To the OP:

I made a homebuilt water trap, that seems to get the lion's share of the
water and moisture out of the air before it can get to any desiccant type
air dryer. Beware that a small desiccant will be wet and change color and
be used up very quickly at the high airflow that sandblasting requires.

Get a 6 foot length of 1-1/2" steel pipe, (or bigger, and bigger could only
work better) and an assortment of fittings, to adapt it to a configuration
like the following. You want to pipe your air supply into the bottom of the
pipe, which will be used straight up and down. You will want to put the air
into the pipe with a T fitting, so the air will be going into the T and
traveling upwards, but a few inches lower than the T will be a reservoir
area of a few inches of pipe and a drain petcock to remove accumulated
water. I also put a quick disconnect on the inlet and the outlet to make it
handy to hook up.

After the air enters, it will travel upwards, but pretty slowly which will
tend to let water drop out of suspension. Because it is in a big piece of
steel, the air will also cool and condense and let more water drop out, and
run down the pipe to be collected and drained out the petcock at the bottom.
--
Jim in NC