Mine is a Curtis two stage with the Baldor true 5HP motor with a mag starter. Cast iron cylinders and slow rpm for long life. I never run out of air even with an antique CP in line sander. It is a little higher, but an absolute BEAST!
The three Ingersoll Rands I had were all junk. I owned a tire store for years and I always had to have a backup for the Ingersoll Rands because I just couldn't depend on them. I always bought new compressors. The last compressor I bought for the store was a Quincy QR-25 series, it has never given any trouble to me or the current owners. I have a QR-25 series Quincy at my home garage and love it. Unless something happens you will never have to buy another compressor again. They even sell rebuild kit for them.
Run that puts at a minimum 23.5 CFM with a big tank. If you have a number of workers in line 2 or 3 more. My favorite is Curtis.
Quincy all the way over any of the current IR compressors. IR cheaps out on the motors on theirs and if you look at various forums where people are discussing compressors there's all sorts of complaints about the motor burning up and then having to wait several weeks to get a replacement if they happen to be out of stock. My home shop compressor is a 5 hp Quincy made in 1955. Bought at a state auction from a state highway maintenance shop in 1970. Run in daily use in my dad's sheet metal shop for about 25 yrs, and then retired to my garage when we needed something bigger at the shop. In the 57 yrs its been around, its never had a wrench on it for any reason.
You need to loook at your cfm at the psi. you plan on using the most .And aline the two And the needs of your paint guns. I put two cheaper used 5hp 60 gal. ones inline till a better buy on a compressor that moved a lot of air at the lower psi. came a long . It's the volume more then the pressure. Roger Have fun.
home built compressor westinghouse 2 stage pump ( i broke the crank accidently and a machinest friend fixed it with new steel welded to the cast iron crank , been working this way for 15 yrs now) 80 gallon tank found on craigslist for 50 5 hp ajax motor with magnetic switch cost new for 300 dollars then pressure switch that i found at flea market for a couple dollars , also bought a pressure release switch new it has worked well for me well over 15 yrs , have done some moderate sandblasting but its not good enough for long use for this. Jen
I've had mine for about 4 years now and love it Have never once outworked it. The plant I work for has abour $100k worth of Quincy compressor, they run 18 hours a day and have never any problems.
I got a beautiful lightly used Devair 5HP 80 gallon on Ebay for $305. It puts out 20 CFM and I still need more for blasting. Thinking of buying a second large tank and daisy chaining them. As everyone else said, go big and dry your air out. By the way I had my annual stroke of genius and put my air through a heavy duty transmission cooler (Ebay $30) with a fan behind it - it's working like a champ.
I see that you are located in Minnesota. I would give these guys that are located in Chaska a good look. http://www.castair.net/ I have one of their 5 hp garage series compressors going on 10 years now. I have worked the hell out of it with zero problems VERY well built unit
I had a five HP garage compressor for years. No problems except it always collected a lot of water in the tank and line no matter what I did. I did a bit of research and found out why. This style of compressor runs a lot and produces a lot of heat at the pump. I recently replaced it with an rebuilt 40 year old Curtis 3 HP two stage, single phase with a 75 gallon tank, auto switch, and air dryer/regulator. This old girl is huge. It has a horizontal tank yet stands almost six feet high. It runs a quarter as much as the old unit, the air is cool and dry. If I can suggest anything it would be to check out the local rags for a commercial unit. You won't regret it.
My vote on a USA built compressor is a Saylor-Beall. I have a pic but I forgot how to load it. Now its there. This a REAL air compressor. Pretty,Very Pretty,but can she fight. What movie was this from??? She wasn't cheap!!! But the good ones never are.
Sorry, didn't know there was so many posts on here! Thanks for all the input/info and recommendations. A lot are recommending something like 7.5 hp +. To remind you all this is not for a shop but for home use. I'm not going to have more than one air hose hooked up to it at a time. I think I'm going to go with an 80 gallon, 5hp, 2 stage quincy. I don't really want to spend that much but figure it's best to get something that will last a long time. http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200350476_200350476
Here is what we run in our shop. They had free 12 month financing which helped a lot. http://www.tractorsupply.com/ingersoll-rand-reg-7-5-hp-80-gallon-two-stage-air-compressor-3452272
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