In message , Bob Minchin
writes
John Rumm wrote:
On 10/09/2010 17:50, Peter Twydell wrote:
In message , John
Rumm writes
On 10/09/2010 11:41, Roger Mills wrote:
Lidl have this compressor
http://lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/lidl_...ndex_13876.htm on offer
at £80 next Thursday.

Is it likely to be any good? [It's quite a lot cheaper than a (roughly)
equivalent jobbie from the likes of Machine Mart].

It actually looks quite reasonable - a 25L receiver is about the
minimum size for getting useful amounts of work done in a range of
applications. It does not spec a free air delivery or input power, but
from the displacement I should guess its about 1 to 1.5 hp. It has
auto switching which some of the bargain basement ones lack.

I've often toyed with the idea of having a compressor - so this looks
like a possible opportunity to 'stick my toe in the water'.

How many of you own one? How useful is it - particularly one of this
size?

I have a similar spec SIP unit, and use if for a reasonable range of
jobs including: nail guns (framing and 18g brad), tyre inflation, blow
gun (dusting, and inflating low pressure stuff!), medium sized spray
gun which I used for furniture finishing, impact wrench, plus a couple
of less often used things.

Its not going to be well suited to jobs that need continuous supply of
lots of air like running some rotating air tools, or bigger spraying
jobs.


My weatherboarding garage has a surface area of 60 square metres. Sounds
like a biggish job to me. What would happen if I were to use the Lidl
compressor to spray it with timber treatment? Would it run out of puff
after a few sq m, or would it keep going for an hour or so?

Since its 2.5hp, then a free aid delivery of 7 cfm seems plausible -
that will run a fair size spray gun. Its rare to keep the trigger held
down for that long at a time anyway when spraying, so there are natural
breaks to allow it to recharge. I can't see 60m^2 being much problem in
that sense. (although for wood preserver a pump up garden sprayer is
probably as good or better - you don't normally need the fine
atomisation (and hence fine finish achievable) of a high presure sprayer
for that.

The house (semi-detached part of a converted barn) is even bigger. One
of these day's I'll measure it and frighten myself at the cost of
treating it.

Just don't spray on a windy day, else you will be treating the
neighbourhood at the same time!

An HVLP sprayer would be much better for this sort of job. The blower
is light weight and hangs off your shoulder on a strap with just a
mains lead to tow behind you. I was quite pleased with the performance
power one from B&Q - about £50 4 years ago.
I expect they still do them maybe with a different badge.

Bob

That sounds like a much better idea.

I've also got a number of radiators to paint, not to mention the 80+
metres of fencing that I did a few years ago with a Cuprinol hand-pumped
sprayer. The Earlex video on the Screwfix site is quite persuasive.

Thanks for the suggestion.
--
Peter

Ying tong iddle-i po!