"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote in message
...

"Tom Gardner" wrote in message
news
I have two #325 and one #qr-25 I can't tell them apart and the parts all
seem the same. They are all 2-stage and will do higher pressure. We
bought
just the pumps over the years and mated them into our existing system so
nothing is factory OEM. Our back-up is a 10 hp "Hydrovane" that we run
for
a day every quarter to service the Quincys. They get fresh oil and a
valve
cleaning. We try to track-down leaks that will drain the two 80 gallon
tanks in about 5 minutes after shut-down but seem to only find the most
blatant. I'll bet I'm paying twice as much for air as I should.

That's a damned shame. I never turn mine off. I have a couple very old
nozzles I use, one on the mill, one on the lathe. They're the type that
aren't OSHA approved, with no safety vents. I really like them, so I use
them, and I'm the only one that has access to them aside from Susan.
OSHA
isn't a factor. As long as they are well lubed, and the insert is
properly tightened, they don't leak. Even with my compressor set @ 175
PSI, it will often not start once a day, so I'm obviously not losing much
air.

I rebuilt all my Milton connectors (something like 20 of them), replacing
the steel valves with stainless ones that I made, and made new gaskets
(which I also made), so they do not leak. I imagine it's nearly
impossible to have an air system totally air tight, but yours sure sounds
like it's pretty porous. Imagine if you ran higher pressure!

I have a manifold system and ball valves on my setup so I can blow down
easily. It discharges outside, so there's no mess. It's one of the best
things I've ever done for my air system because I now blow down daily, and
it takes but a few seconds.

Harold



We used to have two taps at every drop, one would be 125 psi and the other
regulated to 30 psi for blow guns. Each tap was a different style of
connector so the people couldn't plug a blow gun into the High pressure. In
those days there weren't safety blow guns. Somehow, we ended up with just
the one style and of course, they are hard to find and expensive and there
are well over 100 of them. Every six months or so, I try to get everybody
to track down all the leaky fittings, We rebuild the fittings and make new
rubber washers for them and it's better for a while. I do believe it would
be cheaper to replace ALL the fittings with cheaper, more popular fittings,
I'd say $600 P+L, than run 15 HP twice as long as I should have to, about 60
to 70% run time. I'll have to do the math and see when the pay-back is.
But, I certainly love my Quincys!!! I wish I had other no-brainers.