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[bigwig]

I'm in a different world than you guys.  This is for an Awards & Recongition shop.  It is for sandblasting crystal and glass awards.  It takes a very low pressure to work with these products.  On the rare occasion, we may need to do some stone which would basically be the limit of the setup.  Getting some monster would be WAY beyond our needs.

With that said, if we regularly end up doing large stones, I'm sure at that point the basic compressor would become pretty crippling.  If our business changes that much, we will do whatever we have to.  I'll just take the compressor and move it into the garage.

[bigwig]

Small update:

I picked up the big items for the sand blasting setup.  It won't be assembled and up and running for another 2 weeks probably.  I have to have an electrician come by and sort out the power.  Being in a rented commercial building, I can't do the work myself.  I also have to get a foot pedal, pinch valve, and some other plumbing/filters/drains so the setup can be bolted to the floor.

After doing quite a bit of research, I didn't really find anything on craigslist that seemed worth the effort of draging it over to the shop to just have it fail.  A lot of 15-20 year old stuff and a lot of people using big box 60 gal units still wanting $300 for them.

In the end, I got the IR SS3L3 compressor.  It's a 3HP 60 gal single stage.  I know it won't be great, and it wasn't cheap (almost double what HF's unit was), but I just don't feel like messing around with a failed compressor.  The IR unit has overall good reviews.  43 4-5 star reviews on Northern Tool.  Most talking about the purchase after owning for 18+ months.  We also bought directly from IR which is only 15 minutes from the shop in an industrial center with 3 of our distributors, so getting parts/repairs will be more convenient.  As for the big box stores, the HF unit had mixed reviews.  The Kobalt unit is discontinued.  The HD unit is also discontinued(probably what I was going to get because of the 4 year warranty).  The Campbell Hausfeld unit had mixed reviews.  More than one person complaining about failed compressors.

Discussion made.  In a few weeks I might do a final update and show some other interesting products/projects I might think about offering.  I'm thinking about getting some intake gasket material and cutting them on the laser or the CNC.  I can also make some pretty decent looking tags to go on manifolds/intercoolers, that are a little different than the current ones available.