best material for shop airlines

what Antny said,...never PVC,...ever.
I was helping install PVC airlines at a mechanics shop as a kid in high school. One of the lines exploded about 20 feet from me from too much PSI,...I peed a couple drops in my pants. I used galvanized pipe in my home shop, under my workbench, with an acceptable slope for condensation, and an in line dryer and regulator. Work bench is about 30 feet long, with quick disconnects about every 4 feet or so.

Also, check out garagejournal.com

 

You "loop" it up and back down to prevent debris and water from making it into the down legs.

 

That is what I do in the plant(factory).

I use 10' sticks with a "T" at every joint, and plug most of the "T's" for future use. Still have to cut and thread some pipe.

Be sure and pressure test and eliminate leaks. You waste a lot of $ and noise at every leak.

 

If you can run the line in a loop and have a leg between 2 sides of the loop there will be very consistent air pressure even if more than tool is being used simultaneously.

 

looks very nice soldering is neat the only problem will be that the leg running down to the outlet will either not be straight down or will be installed with a bending motion. if the main is properly pitched the down leg would need to be piped with a slight twist in the offset to look straight . 30+ years of steamfitting and plumbing experience. you should have a great system if you do it like that .just drain the end of the main and the downlegs also and your air should be dry

 

What about the plastic airlines that are run on trailer trucks? I don't know how big a diameter it is made. I think I have seen 1/2" and it may be made in 5/8". It is rated for air, I think I have seen it at 300+psi. I don't know the cost but it should be available at any truck & trailer supply or even the big truck stops.

 

Is this where that idea came from? It is in the "Restored 1930"s shop " thread on the www.garagejournal.com . http://www.transairaluminumpipe.com/

 

Exactley! may i ask (im sure im missing something) why you need to plumb a system in the garage? or we talkin big shops w/ diffrent air terminals that are set in few diffrent places in the shop and thers only one (big) compressor feedin them? This is the only reason i can see something like this happening.
Im just curious not trying to bash anything or anyone.
thanx.

 

Doc,
Soft solder can crack and leak with vibration. Have you considered hard/silver soldering it? Its much stronger. Im in the HVAC trade and the hard solder is all we use for anything holding pressure. Soft solder is for low pressure water or drains. Nice solder job though! Just my two cents.
Rob

 

I agree, as I posted before.

 

The very best thing to use for air delivery lines would be threaded stainless steel tubing.
The second best thing to use would be hard drawn type K copper tubing, copper pressure fittings and silfloss or silver flow joints.
Next best would be food grade schedule 120 rigid polymer tubing.
Next would be Schedule 80 CPVC.
Possibly galvanized piping if you have a very good filter system and run your system to drain properly.
Type L copper tubing brazed.
Type L copper tubing using a silver based alloy soft solder. " The joints will not fail before the tube walls, properly soldered they are much stronger than the tube."
Type M copper would be ****, schedule 40 pvc is dangerous and gets more dangerous over time as it becomes brittle and is temperature sensitive, on a really cold day you can hit it and it will shatter. Black pipe is going to rust and clog your equipment, blow rusty poop all over your paint and eventually you will have a pipe wall burst, too much water content in compressed air from the environment for black tube.
Pre fabricating fittings such as was done in the top tap is not good practice in the Plumbing field, any time you pre fab a section of piping you should not have adjacent joints which will need to be re heated and will almost definitely thaw, the pre fabbed joints may have essential alloys sacrificed through the process of reheating leaving you with a much weaker joint. Now in the event that you brazed or hard soldered this you could more easily pre fab this part as you would be less likely to re melt that material.
On a type L copper line in soft solder I have burst tested several, things usually don't get exciting until you reach 300 PSI, poor soldering and side walls most always pop first.

 

Smartpipe. Nothing else even comes close.

 

Sch.40 stainless steel 3/4" dia. Can't imagine what it would cost if i had to pay for it !

 

Nice job