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I've been using a air compressor without a tank for years now (mostly because of money reason) and have been looking into getting a tank.
Currently I have this compressor.
http://www.harborfreight.com/16-hp-58-psi-oilless-airbrush-compressor-60329.html
I was wondering if I could connect it to this tank and paint from that?
http://www.harborfreight.com/5-gallon-portable-air-tank-65594.html

You can quite easily add one or more additional tanks to your compressed air system to give you more volume, act as a buffer for pulsing air supplies or to just not have the compressor running all the time.

My primary source of air comes from a large upright compressor that is actually outside of my garage. From there it goes into the garage where I have a smaller tank that acts as an expansion chamber for the first moisture trap. It splits off to feed air lines in the garage and then runs through the attic across the house to my hobby room where it comes out of the wall to another small tank that buffers the supply against surges (mostly over pressure surges when the big compressor kicks in...) and a secondary expansion tank/moisture trap. From there - it splits. One line to my workbench for a blow gun/venturi vacuum rig, the other to my paint booth where it feeds my airbrush manifold.

Valves and regulators throughout.

To rig those two up, you will need some fittings to replace the Schraeder style connections (same connections on tires). Not sure what the threads will be on it - but that can pose a bit of a problem dealing with Harbor Freight items as they are often something odd.

It wasn't apparent at a glance - but I didn't see any sort of blow off valve (safety concern...though at 58 PSI feeding a 125 PSI tank - you should be OK for now). There also doesn't look to be a drain plug. When the compressed air first enters the tank - a lot of the moisture will fall out of the expanding air. If you don't deal with this via a drain that is used periodically...it can begin to rust out the tank.

Down here in Florida, I routinely empty significant amounts of water out of my compressor and various expansion tanks/moisture traps (the last one is micro-sieve, which gets baked about once every two months). Moody isn't much different, last time I was there - so if it doesn't have a drain plug, you might want to look for one that does have one.

Wow, sweet setup, Sean I want to set up something like that, too.

I would suggest removing the pressure regulator and moisture trap from the compressor end and attaching it to the air tank end (or buying a second one), since you want to regulate and moisture trap the air coming out of the tank. Since it's a 125PSI tank, the regulator on there (if it is one.. it might just be a gauge) wouldn't be accurate at the sub-20 you need to airbrush. And obviously, moisture accumulation is deadly.

I don't know how you'd get around not having a drain plug. You'd have to remove the valve at the top and drain from there, at least periodically. but that valve probably doesn't use an O-ring, which would make it a pain. :(

You might be better off to sell your hobby compressor, and buy a hobby compressor with a tank?

Talys wrote:
Wow, sweet setup, Sean I want to set up something like that, too.

I would suggest removing the pressure regulator and moisture trap from the compressor end and attaching it to the air tank end (or buying a second one), since you want to regulate and moisture trap the air coming out of the tank. Since it's a 125PSI tank, the regulator on there (if it is one.. it might just be a gauge) wouldn't be accurate at the sub-20 you need to airbrush. And obviously, moisture accumulation is deadly.

I don't know how you'd get around not having a drain plug. You'd have to remove the valve at the top and drain from there, at least periodically. but that valve probably doesn't use an O-ring, which would make it a pain. :(

You might be better off to sell your hobby compressor, and buy a hobby compressor with a tank?

I think you are right! How about something like this?
http://www.amazon.com/AIRBRUSH-COMPRESSOR--Airbrush-Published-Exclusively/dp/B001738DXU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418353033&sr=8-1&keywords=airbrush+compressor

That would work well enough. I haven't bothered to mess with most their compressors - but TCP is a fairly good retailer, so if it is a messed up compressor...they will likely stand behind it.

I say that, because Masters is their China-built brand. You can get things that work just fine - others that do not. Bit of a crap shoot since the QC is pretty much non existent for them. Plenty of people are happy with the product though, and the price is generally right.

In terms of how to hook up the tank without a drain (and yet still be able to drain it) I would probably hook the compressor to the tank via a quick connect with the male end on the tank. When I want to drain, bleed the pressure...pop the disconnect and turn it upside down to let any water drain out the fitting. Once done - pop the fitting back on and recharge the system. No tools to mess around with - but far from perfect.

You should be able to remove the trap and regulator from your compressor, run a line from the compressor to a "T" fitting that feeds into the tank on one side and out to the relocated regulator/trap on the other side. From there...your brush setup.

The compressor has an auto shutoff that trips at the 58 PSI mark - so that should keep the compressor/tank side under control. For peace of mind though, you can fit it with an "X" as opposed to a "T" fitting and have the gauge from the tank provide a high side reading. The regulator that you steal from the compressor should be low enough to work for controlling airbrush pressures.

Can't guarantee you would save much money in the end over just buying that Masters compressor with a tank in the end. Brass fittings are not cheap, and depending on how many different ways you need to adapt them - you could add up your costs really fast. I do have a bit of a soft spot for that sort of bodgery though. My own vacuum pumps are actually built using this as a basis of design:

http://www.joewoodworker.com/veneering/v2-about.htm

One sort of point of note if you look over there...

You might notice the use of PVC pipe to make vacuum reservoirs and ask yourself...can I make pressure tanks as well? Answer - yes. The working pressure for something like 3" Schedule 40 PVC is over 150 PSI (burst being somewhere North of 800 PSI). You can Google things to figure out the specifics...but keep in mind, even 60 PSI can put the hurt on if you end up on the wrong side of a pressurized system.

My expansion tanks are actually 4 or 5" Schedule 80 PVC, sized as needed to deal with (roughly 1 gallon of internal volume per foot for 5" PVC).

 sickening wrote:


I think you are right! How about something like this?
http://www.amazon.com/AIRBRUSH-COMPRESSOR--Airbrush-Published-Exclusively/dp/B001738DXU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418353033&sr=8-1&keywords=airbrush+compressor

Yeah, bud. For $90, minus what you can get for your old one (or stick it in the closet as an emergency spare), this is the way to go. Incidentally, if I'm not mistaken, someone mentioned that the Masters one has a nonstandard connector, so you may need an adapter. Although, in the photo, the compressor side, at least, looks like a standard 1/4 NPT.

With the Chinese built items - the issue is usually BSP versus NPT. The parts on the actual equipment are normally BSP. They thread on NPT parts for sale in North American markets (and I have heard some that make it to Europe as well).

This leads to several issues. First the threads are off by a bit. The standard 1/4" BSP is 19 TPI, while the standard 1/4" NPT is 18 TPI. The NPT fitting also is a tapered fitting, where the BSP is straight threads. Because of the shape of the BSP threads (bit more like a wave as opposed to sharp teeth) and the taper of the NPT fitting - you can actually get the two to work more or less provided it is a male NPT going into a female BSP (other way around doesn't work so well). You will need a fair amount of Teflon tape though - and you will need to be careful when making connections.

Better (larger) pipe fitting stores should carry both (here in North America as well as over in Europe) as well as adapters that let you go from BSP to NPT and back again as well as some of the metric fittings.

You run into a bit of the same problem on the other end of your air supply. Iwata are actually a 10mm pipe fitting, though a 1/8 NPT fits well enough. Paasche and Grex is 1/8" NPT at the brush. Badger uses an M5x0.5. H&S is a 1/8" BSP.

Making all of those connect correctly is a bit of a pain - the easiest is to go ahead and use the standard fittings from the manufacturer off the brush connected to a feed hose, with a quick connect on the other end. Hoses don't generally care what size thread they are dealing with.

Wow that's good to know! What compressor would you suggest?

Wow, Sean, you are a font of knowledge.

In the US, you might try an industrial parts vendor, as they typically have hose coming out of the yin-yang. An example would be Applied Industrial Technologies (www.applied.com).

You also pay a lot less than hobby shops.

 sickening wrote:
Wow that's good to know! What compressor would you suggest?

Like I said - I don't really mess about too much with hobby compressors. The one you have right now should work fine, you can easily add a tank to the system (even the tank you had linked to). Others will depend a bit on your price range and actual needs in terms of air supply, noise and space.

Mine is a stand up Ingersoll Rand. Sounds a bit like a V8 engine with open headers when it is running - so that alone is normally enough to eliminate it from most peoples selection. Needs a dedicated 230v circuit as well - also a deal breaker for many. Provides me with 18 CFM at 90 PSI though, which means I can spray with my HVLP, run my pneumatic tools in the garage, pressurize the heck out of some resin when casting (or peg my vacuum gauge in about 30 seconds), as well as provide for all my airbrush needs (and pump up my car tires too).

I have spent time working in T-Shirt shops and Body Painting booths where they use things like Whisper Aires (very quiet...didn't have any problems), Paasche and Badger compressors. All do what they are supposed to do - but a bit more expensive than a lot of people probably need/want to spend. I also know a few people who don't use compressors (they also don't use canned air). One uses compressed gas (believe CO2...might be Nitrogen), the other two live in apartments in cities (New York and Seattle) and they actually use tanks like the one you linked to (think a bit bigger than that one) that they fill up at garages. Can usually get a few hours worth of painting out of each fill from what I have been told.

In terms of where to get fittings...when you don't know - an old school hardware store with an old guy who knows about stuff is generally the best way to get sorted. Take in your two fittings and have them figure out what fits to what. Costs a bit more, but worth it in most cases. Most people don't have thread gauges and other tools needed to properly measure fittings to figure out what is what. If you know what you are trying to connect up...I like McMaster Carr. They have everything. They deal with consumers on a regular basis. They have everything.

A lot of the industrial parts vendors don't mind selling to consumers - but they don't want to sell less than full rolls of material (or have something like a $1000 minimum order). Much better prices than hobby and hardware stores...but often it isn't worth the hassle for them to sell to a small purchaser.

Do you think the compressor that I currently own could handle filling up a 5gal. tank?

Less a question of if it can fill it up and more a question of how long it will take to fill it up.

It will continue to run up until the maximum pressure is reached. With the built in capacity - that might mean a minute or less to hit the 58 PSI. With the 5 gallon tank - it might take 15 minutes to hit the cut off. If it were a big 80 gallon tank - might take all day.

The only thing to be concerned about is the duty cycle for the compressor and your chances of burning it out. Most compressors without a large tank are designed to run fairly consistently for a few hours at a time. You would actually have a bigger problem if you were dealing with something that had a 1 gallon or larger tank and wanted to pressurize an 80 gallon tank as the duty cycle for those compressors is generally much shorter...and it would need to run for much longer to actually fill that large tank.

I was thinking the same thing. It "could" fill the tank but probably vastly shorten its life span.