[Shop-talk] Compressed Air Lines, RapidAir

[Arvid Jedlicka]

A +1 on the ease of installation of copper.

And at least in my area [Minnesota] the green-box store is about 10% cheaper 
on copper than the orange-box or the blue-box. I used "L" and a silver based 
solder and have never had an issue.

I had tried black iron and found that Teflon tape is not the way to make an 
effective joint seal. I then went to Teflon pipe joint compound and that 
solved the pipe sealing issues but I was still left with the hassle of 
cutting and threading. So I started over with copper and like David have 
lived happily ever after.

Arvid

-----Original Message----- 
From: David Hillman
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2011 1:54 PM
To: shop-talk List
Subject: Re: [Shop-talk] Compressed Air Lines, RapidAir

On Thu, 13 Oct 2011, David Hillman wrote:
>   Do not ever buy this product.  Do not allow anyone you know ( or, at 
> least, like ) to buy it.  Do not believe anything on that website, except 
> the price ( and the 'master kit' only has about half what you need for a 
> very minimal install ).
>
>   I should've just used regular copper, it would've been so much easier 
> and faster, and cheaper, too I think.
>
>   I might even tear this crap down, eat the $200, and replace it with 
> copper.

    One last update... Friday morning, I decided to rip out the
nearly-finished Rapid Air install, and replace with copper.

    Now I regret buying that Rapid Air crap even more.  The copper was so
much easier to install, it's not funny.  I used a mix of Sharkbite
fittings ( which cost only a little more than the cheap plastic Rapid Air
fittings ) and sweated fittings.  Finished the whole thing ( 80 foot loop
with five drops ) over the weekend, and didn't spend more than 5 hours on
it either day.  That includes some time to tear down the Rapid Air, box
it up, and post it on Craigslist ;) No leaks, except for the cheap 5-way
manifold that I bought from Northern Tool.

    For what it's worth, the Rapid Air kit, plus the extras I needed and
shipping, ran me around $175.  I spent over a month trying to install it,
mainly because of the tubing's memory.

    The copper cost about $250 ( would've been a little more had I not
already had a torch, pipe cutter, etc ), picked up from the orange box,
and like I said, installed in an easy weekend.  I could've saved $40 by
using thin-wall M, but I went with blue type L.

    I can't think of any reason not to use copper, to be honest.  I can
think of many reasons not to use Rapid Air ;)

--
  David Hillman
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