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by KennyBlanken
1074 days ago
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I was referring to the tools themselves being loud. It's not common for mechanics to be wearing ear protection, and air ratchets and impact guns are VERY loud. Air tools are not maintenance free. They all require oiling devices inline, or regularly being oiled, and that oil gets into the shop and coats everything; you're also breathing that shit into your lungs. That's why in a lot of mechanic's shops, everything is greasy. Pneumatic tool oil. You can buy a lot of batteries, tools, and chargers for the cost of installing a hard line air system. That still doesn't address the annoyance of the air hose, which is even worse than electrical cords - less flexible and heavier. |
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Hardline air system is ... not a significant cost? You make it sound like it's 10k.
Most shops are using a couple hundred feet of 1" copper, which has gone up in price but it's not that expensive. It would have been wildly cheap a decade ago (6 bucks a stick vs 20)
200ft of 1" copper is, at shitty prices, 200-250 bucks. Fittings for drops another 100 or whatever.
Time to solder it is annoying for sure, but you could press it if you want.
You could also go aluminum pipe systems, etc.
I've spent way more on battery based festool sanders (500-600 a piece) and drill/drivers than i did on hardline for the shop. The pneumatic tools were much less expensive as well. So i definitely disagree there.
Oil gets everywhere in anything working on metal, no matter what. I don't think that is avoidable - it definitely isn't fixed in any way by battery tools. I don't know a mechanic shop of any sort, battery or air based, that isn't a greasy oily mess. Battery tools require maintenance too. Heck, lots of mine want to be oiled regularly which is annoying without in-line oilers.
Your hate of air cords is more than mine - they seem equally as annoying as electrical cords. I can easily make well organized ceiling drops of electrical or air that keeps them out of the way.
If your shop is just running cords all over the place (as plenty of small operations do), it's, at least for me, equally, annoying whether they are electrical or air.
I guess we will just disagree.