On 13 Oct 2007 22:52:13 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm,
(DoN. Nichols) quickly quoth:

would not expect a HF air tool to look as nice.

They don't, I assure you.

I somehow did not expect them to. Whether the works of mine are
as good as the exterior appearance remains to be seen. :-)

Indubitably.


I've never seen any problems with any of my tools at that junction.
Well, except the one I dropped directly on the connector from 6' up on
a 4-wheel alignent rack. It bent the connector and cracked the Rodac
tailcap, but a new connector installed with Gorilla Snot fixed it
right up. That's held for 25 years now so I don't think it's going
anywhere.

That sounds good enough. How often is the female on the hose
replaced? That is the part which I would expect to suffer more from the
vibration.

I've never seen one replaced from that, per se. Most stop sealing (the
o-ring goes out) or they wear out from years of daily use. I won't be
buying any more HF QD fittings. They're just too cheaply made and the
female's doohickey gets cocked sideways in them far too often, letting
the air escape after the male fitting has been removed. It's a PITA.


Do you use different colored hoses for paint, I hope?

I will once I start painting. Right now, I'm using the air
primarily for driving various tools. One interesting one which I got
from a hamfest along with a nice screwdriver one is something called a
"Screw-Stick". It has a hex drive at the bottom and a tube to just
clear the points of the hex all the way through the body. What goes in
it is a series of short screws with a hex head, beveled just enough so
it will force the hex drive up when it reaches bottom. There is a
section about half the diameter of the screw thread connecting the head
of one to the screw of the next. When the screw bottoms, it drives only
through the narrow section, which wrings off as it torques the screw
into place, leaving you ready for putting the next screw in the next
hole. I wish that I could find a few more sticks. I'm reluctant to use
these up until I can get replacements. (I've been watching eBay for a
few years and not seen them.)

Sounds handy for production work.


Wuss! I take bandaids for shooting my KelTec 9mm. It eats my thumb
knuckle for lunch every time if I don't have one on there.

Hmm ... that sounds like a bit of poor design there. The .41
Magnum did not used to bother me, but with 66 years on these old joints,
things are a bit more sensitive now. :-) Sort of encourages me to load
up light loads. :-)

I think the curve is too tight at the back of the frame where it goes
from the grip to the base of the slide. Or maybe my thumb knuckles are
larger from auto work for all those years. Who knows? A bandaid saves
the blister from forming, though. Cheap fix.

And don't worry, Don. You'll find dozens of other uses for the air
chisel once you get using it for a while. There are plenty of
different planishing hammer heads for them if you're into that.

--
Remember: Every silver lining has a cloud.
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