Sears has Craftsman, Home Depot has Husky, and Lowe's had DeWalt.

Right now I'm leaning towards Sears as they have a 17gal job on sale for $199.  Home Depot had a smaller Husky (never heard of em) for the same price.  Haven't driven over to Lowe's yet but their prices online aren't great.

Any suggestions?

We bought a 17 gallon Craftsman about 6 months ago.  I'm pretty happy with it, but I'm not using it for anything crazy either.  It gets most of its use from filling up the tires on the cars and the occasional project with a brad nailer.  200 sounds like what we paid but I don't remember exactly.  Hope that helps.

i just got a 6 gallon husky from home depot, it does what i need it to so far.  but $199 for a 17 gal, if it's not a total pos, i'd grab it up.

Quoted: Sears has Craftsman, Home Depot has Husky, and Lowe's had DeWalt. Right now I'm leaning towards Sears as they have a 17gal job on sale for $199.  Home Depot had a smaller Husky (never heard of em) for the same price.  Haven't driven over to Lowe's yet but their prices online aren't great. Any suggestions?

What are you going to do with it?


Buy more capacity than you need.  Once you have a compressor, you'll find more uses for it...trust me!!

Quoted: Quoted: Sears has Craftsman, Home Depot has Husky, and Lowe's had DeWalt. Right now I'm leaning towards Sears as they have a 17gal job on sale for $199.  Home Depot had a smaller Husky (never heard of em) for the same price.  Haven't driven over to Lowe's yet but their prices online aren't great. Any suggestions? What are you going to do with it? Buy more capacity than you need.  Once you have a compressor, you'll find more uses for it...trust me!!

Solid advice!!

I have a Craftsman I bought from Sears about 8 months ago.  It's probably the same 17 gal one you're looking at.  Mine is the one that stores vertically, and it came with a small accessory kit (hoses, nozzles, connectors, etc).   I got it for $179 on sale.  

For the most part, I only use it for my impact wrench (rotating tires).  But it definitely has some other uses as well!   Powered air is a good thing.

Will be using it for sand blasting, duracoating, painting the inside of the house, and whatever else i can figure to use it for.

For those jobs you will want a large tank. Or the compressor will be cycling too often. I have a 25 gallon and I use it all the time. Blow gun alone is worth it. I did a timing belt swap on my fiancee's focus in 2 hours or so and numerous other mechanics jobs that would have taken forever with hand tools.

I can't imagine a 17 gal would be enough for blasting and I know it isn't enough for an hvlp type cup gun for any sizeable project.

I have a 40 gallon 175 psi compressor and it even needs a break in use to keep up and shut off.

i got one of the craftsman 30 gal ones and i love it.

not portable, but more then capable of doing all the stuff around the shop and then some.

Guys, "gallons" and "psi" are not the relevant numbers here.  "CFM @ PSI" is what it's all about, especially if you're talking about blasting...

What is your budget?  By far, one of the best is a 80 gallon upright Ingersoll Rand commercial that runs 22CFM at 120PSI with 100% duty cycle.  This can be had for about $2300 the last I checked.  It will run any air tool a decent shop will need.

Any IR purchased through a distributor will run the balls off any big box store trash.  I am on my third compressor.  Lesson learned.

IR spec link


You can get this in a 2 stage, single phase 208 to 240VAC version that runs on a 40 amp breaker.

Quoted: Will be using it for sand blasting, duracoating, painting the inside of the house, and whatever else i can figure to use it for.

You definately will need bigger.  Sand blasting uses HUGE amounts of air.  Duracoating....probably would work for that.  

Most air powered paint guns work good for odd paint jobs but for around the house painting, you are better buying/renting a true house paint gun.  

I was able to buy a 60 gallon air compressor at Lowes during a sale for about $300....regularly $425.  Of course, it's not portable.

I also have a Husky portable air compressor and it works well for nail gun size projects.  It can run any normal size nailer but uses a little too much air for a roofing nailer....at least for an entire roof.

AFAIK, the new ones are exactly like mine. I have a Craftsman 60 gal 2 stage compressor (5hp) that I bought new in 1988. That's 20 years without one single problem.

Just a data point on reliability

I got a Kobalt #138336 compressor from Lowes (220v, 3.7 running HP, single stage, 155 max psi, 60 gal tank, 11.5 SCFM @ 90 PSI).  They were normally $400, but I picked up one on sale for $300.  It's pretty quiet (much quieter than  my smaller Harbor Freight 120v compressor).

It works great for blasting; I did some this weekend, and the motor was only on about half  of the time.

It's been posted here before, but it bears repeating...I believe if you are handy enough to need an air compressor that you can buy an old one and refurb it to this point...We've got less than $600 in this one, an old Curtis.


Bryan

I am pretty sure both the husky and sears models are made by cambel hausfield, good for diy use home depots 60 gal is the best bang for the buck.  My dad has their 80 gal in has wood working shop (over kill to the point it makes me so proud) as long as its not daily use the husk will be fine.  Not many returned at my store.

By the way.  Down with sLowes

Quoted: It's been posted here before, but it bears repeating...I believe if you are handy enough to need an air compressor that you can buy an old one and refurb it to this point...We've got less than $600 in this one, an old Curtis. Bryan i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee85/biobry/compressor1.jpg

Why the round about routing of the black iron pipe?  

Looks good though.

Quoted: Quoted: It's been posted here before, but it bears repeating...I believe if you are handy enough to need an air compressor that you can buy an old one and refurb it to this point...We've got less than $600 in this one, an old Curtis. Bryan i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee85/biobry/compressor1.jpg Why the round about routing of the black iron pipe?   Looks good though.

Condensation/drainage.  

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: It's been posted here before, but it bears repeating...I believe if you are handy enough to need an air compressor that you can buy an old one and refurb it to this point...We've got less than $600 in this one, an old Curtis. Bryan i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee85/biobry/compressor1.jpg Why the round about routing of the black iron pipe?   Looks good though. Condensation/drainage.

Exactly


Bryan

Quoted: It's been posted here before, but it bears repeating...I believe if you are handy enough to need an air compressor that you can buy an old one and refurb it to this point...We've got less than $600 in this one, an old Curtis. Bryan i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee85/biobry/compressor1.jpg

How big is your tank? Also what size motor?

The compressor and setup look very well layed out.

Quoted: Quoted: It's been posted here before, but it bears repeating...I believe if you are handy enough to need an air compressor that you can buy an old one and refurb it to this point...We've got less than $600 in this one, an old Curtis. Bryan i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee85/biobry/compressor1.jpg How big is your tank? Also what size motor? It's a 5HP motor on a 60 gallon tank...You can carry on a conversation while it's running...not too loud at all. Bryan The compressor and setup look very well layed out.

Latex paint works better with an airless.
You need to thin it to much to use any other type.

I've sold compressors for years, many makes and sizes and the tools that they support.

The first thing you want to do is decide what you want to do with the unit.

Then look into the tools you want to use and can afford. All tools use different amounts of air volume. A tool will require XX CFM ( cubic feet per minute ) at XX psi ( pounds per square inch ) and a general rule of thumb is to buy a compressor with at least 10% over what you need. When you shop for tools, buy carefully and shop for tools that run efficiently on smaller compressors. I have seen some tools that look identical yet one runs on 4 or 5 CFM and the other 15 cfm. Shop carefully for the most efficient tools in your budget.

Oil bath compressors last longer but require a little more maintenance, due to the oil in the pumps that needs to be changed periodically. They generally turn slower than oil free compressors, giving them more longevity due to less wear.
Oil-less compressors usually are cheaper but deffinitely make more noise, pound for pound. They need to turn faster to make up for the lack of oil in them which creates a better seal.

Most of what you will look at in the $200-$300 range will be oil-free and good for small tools that work in bursts.

Your sand/media blasters will not work effectively with small tanked units due to the volume of air ( CFM's ) not being able to be replenished by the pump at the PSI you're going to want to run.

You've got a shot at finding an effeicient blast cabinet if you get a medium sized compressor. Know the bigger the blast media , the bigger the tips , the bigger the CFM's you're gonna need to support it.

CFM's drop as you raise pressures nonormally. You'll see ratings at 40psi and 90PSI listed on the tanks usually and note the CFM's are less as you raise your pressure.

Most paint spraying equipment will run at 40psi. You may be able to get a detail gun ( a small spray gun ) for your duracoat work and have no problem. Once you start looking at better and bigger guns for larger volume material application, like painting a car or similar stuff, you get into more CFM's.

On painting......
Generally there are two kinds of paint systems ( keeping this simple so you have an idea ).
An airless sprayer, used my professionals to paint homes, inside and out, is more like a paint pump. It's going to deliver paint to the area with less over-spray than an air sprayer. The finish will not be as good ( meaning it will not look like a Porsche paint job ) but coverage is good and no compressor is needed.

Air sprayers , usually used for automotive and other finer finishes are very different. They mix the paint with the compressed air, producing a much finer mist if you can understand that. That translates into a finer finish.

Think of this........
Take a bottle of windex and spray it at a table. You get an area of the table wet. That's airless.
Take a can of hairspray now. Spray it at the same table. You'll get a big area of the table wet, you'll most likely get some on the chair, some on the dog on the floor, someone in the next room will yell "who the hell is using all that hairspray", and so on. The hairspray is atomized with a propellant ( like paint and compressed air ) to get it to it's target, but it's not as controlled.



Bottom line??? Don't bother thinking about using a compressor to paint anything in your house, on your house or near your house unless you want overspray on everything not covered up completely. Invest in an airless sprayer if you must do this stuff and use your compressor for the other stuff.

Let me know if you have any questions and sorry for the long post. Hope this helps.

foing