Pretty good lathe air compressor

[Brian Kent]

Never had an air compressor, but I am taking a hollow form class and see the need. Here are the priorities:

1. Quiet
2. Adequate air for blowing out chips from hollow forms and spraying finished
3. Relatively small - under a bench
4. As cheap as possible
5. As close to zero trouble as possible

[Roger Chandler]

I have 2 compressors in my shop, but prefer to take my shop vac and vacuum out the chips when doing hollow forms. It keeps much less dust out of the air, and for a guy who has to be careful about breathing wood dust, I feel it is a lot healthier for me to do it that way.

I hear California Air has about as quiet a line of compressors as are available, but they are much more pricey than most compressors of comparable size. You may be wanting both quiet and cheap, but may have to re-evaluate those goals as they are pretty much exclusive of one another...

[Brian Kent]

By cheap I mean under $300. By quiet I mean really quiet. Currently I use my shop vac.

[Mike Goetzke]

By cheap I mean under $300. By quiet I mean really quiet. Currently I use my shop vac.

I paid just over your budget for a California Air Tools 10020C. Highly recommend it.

Mike

[daryl moses]

but prefer to take my shop vac and vacuum out the chips when doing hollow forms.

^^^^this^^^^^^
I've done it both ways, but prefer using my shop vac.
Blowing them out is a little quicker but your going to have to vacuum, sweep, them up eventually anyway.

[Dwight Rutherford]

I have a California Air compressor that I’m very pleased with.

[Matt Schrum]

I have a 10 gallon California air compressor (two actually, one at home and loved it so much I convinced work to get the same model for our small lab) and love it. It runs quiet. It's not whisper quiet where you can't hear it (which is how the company's video seems to show it-- it's not as quiet as they show in the video)-- but it is quiet enough you can carry on a conversation next to it while it's running without talking too much louder. Way better than the pancake compressors I grew up with.

[Steve Mathews]

Why not distance the compressor from the lathe and pipe over to it?

[Don Jarvie]

I just set up the Rapid Air system just for this. I have a small compressor in a cabinet and have the line run to the lathe. It’s easy to set up and you can expand the system to add more lines.

[Brice Rogers]

Brian, I use a 30 or 40 year old Craftsman compressor. It has a 10 gallon tank, so it builds up pressure and then shuts off. I "plumbed" a line across the ceiling and have a "drop" over to my lathe and added a ball valve (because some air spray heads leak a little at times). So, 99.9% of the time it is shut off. When it does turn on, it makes some noise but it is perhaps for only a minute while it builds up pressure to about 90 psi. My spray nozzle came from Harbor Fright and has about an 8" tube on it. I find that the extended tube really makes a big difference for cleaning out a hollow form. The short nozzle isn't very efficient and cleaning out a hollow form IMHO. Another good use for a compressor is to blow the dust off of a piece that you are sanding so that when you switch grits you don't leave any of the coarser grit on the piece.

You mention that you have a $300 budget. For that price that there are dozens and dozens of different brands to choose from. I looked on-line for Home Despot and see 4 or 5 Ca. air tool compressors in that range and 3 or 4 under $150. Harbor Fright has at least a dozen AC shown on-line in that price range.

My compressor uses oil. Every 30 years I drain and refill. A lot of the newer AC are supposedly oil-less. Perhaps others will chime in on the pros and cons of oil type AC versus oil-free.

If you are never planning on using the air compressor with high volume air tools like an impact wrench, air grinder, etc., and only for blowing dust, any small compressor with a storage tank is going to work fine for you. I occasionally use an air grinder and impact driver with my compressor and it works fine except that I can't use it continuously. After perhaps a half minute I have to let the compressor catch up. Not a big deal.

[Damon McLaughlin]

Never had an air compressor, but I am taking a hollow form class and see the need. Here are the priorities:

1. Quiet
2. Adequate air for blowing out chips from hollow forms and spraying finished
3. Relatively small - under a bench
4. As cheap as possible
5. As close to zero trouble as possible

Brian,

I have had the Kobalt Quiet Compressor from Lowe's for two years now. Its very quiet and has been trouble free for the time I've had it. I wouldn't hesitate to buy it again. Runs $199. Lowe's has a great return policy if you find that it doesn't meet your needs.

[John K Jordan]

Never had an air compressor, but I am taking a hollow form class and see the need. Here are the priorities:

1. Quiet
2. Adequate air for blowing out chips from hollow forms and spraying finished
3. Relatively small - under a bench
4. As cheap as possible
5. As close to zero trouble as possible

What is your budget? I have seven AC powered air compressors around the shop, house, and farm, from quite small to a 60-gal 5hp plumbed to lines through the shop. The one that fits all the points your list is a very small Craftsman pancake compressor Without running air tools you certainly don't need much air volume or pressure. I bought this little compressor used at a turning club auction for $25 and it's been sitting unused on a shelf for over a year. You can have it if you want to drive to TN.

A quick internet search doesn't show that model now. I see a larger one at Lowes for $100, 82db (suitable for some air tools). I have a two that look similar to it and they are NOT what I'd call quiet. If you found one and it's too loud you can build a box to make it quieter. With any compressor you will need to add a moisture separator and probably a desiccant dryer to spray finishes. It would also cost a but but not much for hose, fittings, and air nozzle.

JKJ

[Richard Coers]

Cheap, good, quiet, choose 2.

[Greg Parrish]

I picked up a Quincy 20 gal horizontal air compressor last year that replaced a 30 gal husky v-twin compressor that I gave my Dad. I’m shocked at how quiet the Quincy is. If it’s in the budget, it’s a great, small compressor. You can get them at northern tool. Made in the USA too.

[Dick Mahany]

I recently decided on a Rolair JC10 Plus. It is super quiet at 60 dB and is used at my lathe and for nail guns. It is within your mentioned budget and very compact. I put mine on a small cart that I can store a few systainers on and really like it. It replaced a Kobalt compressor which was driving my wife crazy. She's commented on how nice and quiet it is. Rolair has an excellent reputation for customer service which is what influenced me to go this route as compared to Cal Air Tools after I had read many reviews. The unit is manufactured in China for Rolair. I have seen a number of "quiet" compressors are using an oil-less dual piston design as seen on the rear photo below. I recently read about a quiet Husky unit that just became available at the orange box store and it looked like a very similar setup, although I didn't get to hear it run. In all I am very happy with this unit and haven't found the 1hp / 1.5 gals to be a problem for my use cases as a hobbyist. It has gotten great reviews for several years and I understand why.

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