Quest for Dry Air, On the Cheap Options

[jmill]

I'll be painting sometime soon and recently there has been several timely paint related threads. In the Midwest we're plagued by humid weather and lots of water in our compressed air. I figured I'd share my project to rid myself of water so my paint job isn't ruined.

There are several high dollar units out there to separate water from the air but I'm cheap. I decided to design some piping meant to drop the water out of suspension. All you need is 25' or more of piping, some valves, fittings and good old gravity. I wanted to use copper but it would have cost me over $150 in materials. Going with PVC cost me $40.

I still need to finish the drain and inlet/outlet piping but you'll get the idea.

[rick 918-S]

I stumbled onto one of those HF driers on the close out shelf at our local HF about 6 months ago. I actually just installed it about 2 weeks ago. I also have a Motor Gaurd filter on a branch of the sir line I only use when painting. It has a large toilet paper roll filter. The one draw back with the Motor Gaurd is the thing corrodes when it sits with a wet filter. I actually had one corrode through and blow a hole. Luckily my son stopped over before my compressor went into melt down. The one pictured also started to corrode inside. I ended up cleaning it out and painting the inside with POR15.