One of the more popular uses in industry for compressed air is blowing off parts or products, and one of the more convenient methods of doing so is by use of a handheld blow off device.  Given this combination of popularity and convenience, the manufacture and use of air guns is prolific.  They come in all shapes & sizes, and can be made simply and cheaply.

Simple and cheap is fine, in most cases, for the air gun itself.  The part that the air comes out, however, can make all the difference in the world when looking at the cost of operation, environmental effects, and the ability to use the device safely:

• Cost of operation: the simplest design of an air gun is a trigger device that starts & stops the flow of compressed air through an open discharge.  Throttling this down through a narrow passage increases the velocity of the air flow, making for a more powerful blast of air.  Thing is, this still uses a LOT of compressed air to create that powerful blast…much more than an engineered product. 
• Environmental effects: By this, I mean noise.  Air guns with a simple open discharge can be LOUD – over 100 dBA in many cases.  It’s been well documented, for a long time, that high noise exposure is bad for operators’ health…and not just in the obvious manner of hearing loss.  Among these other effects are high stress, hypertension, and sleep disorders.
• Safe use: Open ended blow offs are in violation of OSHA’s directive 1910.242(b,) which regulates the use of compressed air for cleaning purposes.  The big hazard is dead-ending the device into your body…the pressurized air can literally tear your skin open, and inject itself inside.  This creates a dangerous and often life-threatening condition known as an embolism.

EXAIR Corporation offers a diverse line of Safety Air Guns that address all three of these items:

• Our Super Air Nozzles use a smaller amount of compressed air flow to entrain an enormous amount of “free” air from the surrounding environment to generate a resultant high volume, high velocity air flow.  So you get the same job done, using less compressed air.
• Another benefit to their specific design is that the entrained air forms a boundary layer that attenuates the sound level of the primary flow, resulting in extraordinarily quiet operation, while still producing a very usable air flow.
• And…they’re fully compliant with OSHA 1910.242(b) because they can’t be dead ended.

If you’re looking for additional encouragement to try one out, consider this:  Order an EXAIR Safety Air Gun right now, and get a FREE Model 1126 1″ Flat Super Air Nozzle.  This versatile little engineered blow off device has a number of applications…not the least of which involves its installation on an air gun.

If you’d like to talk about efficiency, sound level reduction, and safety in regard to your use of compressed air (hand held or other,) give me a call.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
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