What size air compressor to fluid film?

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I plan to fluid film my vehicles this fall. The issue I have is I think my 3 gallon HF air compressor is too small. While it will do 100 psi, adequate to run the fluid film gun, I'm afraid I might only get a few seconds of spray time before I need to allow the air compressor to catch up.

I do not run power tools off my air compressor. In the past I've only used it to fill tires. The problem I ran into recently though, was I tried to run a HF pneumatic brake bleeder off it. I could only get 5-8 seconds of suction until I lost the required PSI.

So I'm thinking I've upgrading, maybe to the HomeDepot 8 gallon air compressor. Would that be enough capacity to get by with the small jobs that I do?

**I do not want to go too large and quite frankly, I don't want to spend a lot of money either
 
I have a 12 gallon Craftsman compressor, and with a product similar to FF it had a hard time keeping up. It took a lot of time and patience. I will be doing two vehicles this fall, possibly three. Now have a 60 gallon compressor for the job. It is a toy I wanted for quite sometime now.

I would suggest at least a 20 gallon compressor, anything smaller is going to be a PITA in my opinion. If you have the room and the money, and plan on using air tools I'd suggest doing what I did and make the investment in a bigger unit. My only regret is I didn't listen to my brother years ago and bought the 60 gallon machine back then.
 
My oil-less compressor is 20 gallons; works fine. Not a great setup, but for my infrequent use it is ok.

Could you borrow a friends bigger compressor? Or just do the job at their house?
 
Practically it doesent matter how large your air tank is (that's what i'm supposing you men by X gallon) as long as the compressor can deliver the needed air flow

If you are going to spray for 30 sec at the time and the pause for an other 30 sec, then you can get the job done with a smaller compressor with a large air tank

My advise is to figure out what air flow is needed and then select your compressor.

Generally HP and air flow is as good as linear. 6 hp can deliver roughly twice as much air as a 3 hp
 
You can purchase a large tank rather than a complete tank/compressor. Fill the tank to 100psi, and it will take a long time to empty to the lower psi required to run your gun. At that point you will have to wait until the tank is filled, but a cold beer makes it less onerous.

Another alternative is to rent a tank of compressed nitrogen to power your one-time fluid fill application. Nitrogen and moisture don't mix, so you will have a water-free source of clean compressed gas to power your fluid film gun. 80% of what you are breathing while you read this is nitrogen. Just have plenty of air circulation (leave the garage door open, for example) and the oxygen levels will be fine, no respirator required.

Much cheaper than a new compressor, and you can fill your tires with nitrogen at the same time.

I used to use a compressor to power my airbrush, but switched to nitrogen and solved moisture problems when spraying oil-based pigments and silent operation at the same time, no compressor maintenance, easy and portable setup.
 
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What Id consider if using anything smaller than the 60ish gal units mentioned here is to just put another 10 gal air tank in series. You can get these at HD. With a few tools, it can store a lot more 100 psi air, and then use a second regulator to give you the 45 psi you need.
 
some compressors cycle to 150psi this helps even with smaller tank sizes.

vs 120psi or lower models.


Do you have 230v available?
 
Thats not a very big or fast compressor. 8gal tank 120psi if you need 100psi you will only have seconds to spray.

http://www.harborfreight.com/21-gal-2-12-hp-125-psi-cast-iron-vertical-air-compressor-67847.html

would be adequate but not "good"

not only does it output almost 50% more air than the husky it has a 250% bigger tank therefore you should be able to spray at least 4x longer.


http://www.harborfreight.com/2-horsepower-6-gallon-150-psi-oilless-pancake-compressor-67696.html

would be better than the husky as its 6gal but 150psi
 
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Originally Posted By: Rand
Thats not a very big or fast compressor. 8gal tank 120psi if you need 100psi you will only have seconds to spray.

http://www.harborfreight.com/21-gal-2-12-hp-125-psi-cast-iron-vertical-air-compressor-67847.html

would be adequate but not "good"

not only does it output almost 50% more air than the husky it has a 250% bigger tank therefore you should be able to spray at least 4x longer.


http://www.harborfreight.com/2-horsepower-6-gallon-150-psi-oilless-pancake-compressor-67696.html

would be better than the husky as its 6gal but 150psi


The max PSI does not matter too much, all the compressors can provide more PSI than the paint gun can handle.

What is most important is the CFM at a given pressure say 90 PSI.
 
I bought a bit of overkill 30 gallon 5.1 SCFM at 90 PSI oil-lubed compressor. It can go up to 155 PSI, but takes forever to reach it. The machine runs shorter with the cutoff adjusted to 145 PSI. It should work okay this fall for Fluid Filming about three vehicles.

Whatever you decide, get quality fittings all the way from compressor to spray gun. That's a female quick-connect on the compressor, male and female quick connects on the hose, and a male quick connect on the spray gun. Even a cheap compressor will work better with better fittings. I'm planning on putting Milton V-style fittings onto all those connections. The cost is $30 or so for all those listed, plus some extras for other accessories.
 
Does anybody know the cfm required for the FF guns? According to Kelleysportproducts it runs at 70-90psi but they don't list cfm.
 
Originally Posted By: buck91
Does anybody know the cfm required for the FF guns? According to Kelleysportproducts it runs at 70-90psi but they don't list cfm.


A lot. The 30-gallon compressor I have cycles pretty regularly when spraying FF onto a large area like a car underside. It's about 50% duty cycle for my 30-gallon machine. A smaller compressor would likely be running a bit more. Then again, all the Milton V fittings that were added help to drain the tank faster.
 
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