[AT] Was: Lapping Air Compressor Valves then Compressed Air Piping

[Sheppard, Charles E]

I guess I really started something when I said I didn't want steel pipe
for shop distribution.  Its difficult to do, or at least more difficult
than alternatives, but my concern is with internal corrosion.  My only
experience is from an industrial setting.  Down legs off the main would
fill with condensate and become black as ink from the iron oxide.  Every
leg had a blowdown valve and my job, among many, was to blow the air
until it was clean enough for the impact tools.  Of course nobody wanted
a big black mess on their floor so I had to bucket the water to a drain.
On really humid days I could blow the air and you could see the fog in
the airstream.  I don't know if the iron pipe had much to do with it,
but that's my old movie on the subject.

 

As far as what it might cost, my budget is limited.  But there is a
certain pleasure derived from being frugal-making do with materials at
hand or salvaged at the local scrap yard.  Isn't that what this hobby is
about?  Preserving the past is more a philosophy for me and I get great
pleasure from, say, making an old tool work again.  If I were in the
business of reconditioning tractors like some on the list, I would be
more inclined to buy new.