Tag: Accessories

Feels Good To Be The Best

Published on by exaircorpLeave a comment

Over the weekend, here in the United States we celebrated Independence Day where we declared ourselves as an independent nation, no longer under the rule of Great Britain. Amid all of the celebration there was another event taking place that captured the attention of our great nation – the United States women’s national soccer team (USWNT) was set to compete in the championship game of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup on Sunday.

The USWNT last captured the cup back in 1999 in dramatic fashion by winning 5-4 on a penalty shootout. They also made the final game in the last Women’s World Cup back in 2011 but this time they were unable to duplicate their earlier success and ended up conceding the championship match on a penalty shootout to the Japanese women’s team.

Fast forward to this year, where the USWNT was the odds-on favorite to win based on a balanced roster featuring several veteran players with previous World Cup experience and what some consider the sport’s greatest goalie. They had a few scares along the way, but ultimately were able to advance to the championship game where they matched against a familiar foe – The Japanese national team.

Already fueled by the bittersweet taste in their mouth from the 2011 defeat to the same team, the USWNT came out on fire and scored their first goal in the first 3 minutes followed by their 2nd and 3rd goal, all by the same player, by the time the game clock reached 16 minutes. Needless to say, the team was well on their way to avenging their previous loss and eventually winning the tournament by a 5-2 final score with bragging rights as the best women’s soccer team in the world – at least for the next 4 years.

US Flag
Congratulations to the United States women’s national team – 2015 FIFA World Cup Champs!

I must admit that I am not an avid soccer fan, but rather a sports fan in general and always cheer for United States teams during international competitions. Congratulations to the USWNT on being the best in their sport.

Being the best when dealing with compressed air products, is what we continually strive for here at EXAIR as well. We are always willing to take the necessary steps to maintain our reputation as the industry leader.

Because we offer the largest selection of sizes and materials within all of our product lines, you can be confident you will find a solution to your problem. For example, we manufacture our Super Air Knives available up to 108″ in single-piece construction (an industry first) and have Super Air Knives available in 4 different materials.

Since we are committed to manufacturing custom solutions, developing new products and do the manufacturing – you can be confident that you have the flexibility and expertise of a company able to improve your unique application.

Don’t be concerned about getting your products on time, we have maintained a 99.9% on-time shipments record for 19 years running. We put our team to work for you everyday.

To experience championship level service, give us a call at 1-800-903-9247!

Justin Nicholl
Application Engineer
justinnicholl@exair.com
@EXAIR_JN

 

United States Flag image courtesy of Robert Claypool via Creative Commons License

 

Get the Right Tool With the Features You Want

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

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This year I made a decision to buy a new lawn mower. The previous one I had been using was purchased new about 15 years ago. Just like any new thing any technical oriented type of person buys, you have your own, personal critique of the things you like and don’t like about the current tool that affects your buying choices for the new one.

My old lawn mower was a front wheeled, self-propelled one that was either engaged all the time or off depending on the position of a locking lever you would push. To release it, you had to let go of the safety bar that kills the engine which then killed the engine. Not the best of designs. Also, the front wheels being propelled and not the back ones meant that the wheels with the least amount of weight bearing down on them had to pull the weight of the mower around. This was especially noticeable when the grass catcher bag was full. With this arrangement you end up with wheels digging into the grass/dirt and not really pulling the mower well. A side effect of that over the years; the drive wheels also wear down to a point where there’s no tread and in fact, holes where the nice tread used to be. The old mower did have a bagging attachment but the springs that hold the door down when in mulch mode wore out, so the wind created by the blade would blow grass clippings out all over the operator. A bucket and bungee cord fixed that issue.

Lastly and probably most importantly, the old mower was hard to start. It took the strength of a grown man to get the motor spinning fast enough that the spark would actually ignite the gas and the thing would run. To be quite honest, it never was really all that easy to start and keep running. But that’s one of those things you don’t figure out until you get the thing home and un-packed out of the box. I know, there’s the return policy from the store you buy it from, but that’s never as easy as advertised either. So, I messed around with it and tweaked here and there for 15 years.

This spring, I did my research on-line as well as in the store, comparing all the models available. I must say that there’s no shortage of features and accessories that the lawn mower design guys have cooked up. You can get electric start, self-propelled, 2 wheel drive, all-wheel drive, mulch, bag, side discharge, one blade, two blades, blade stop, electric, gas. You name it. You could get anything from an old-fashioned “reel” mower all the way up to a unit priced more than $1,000.00 USD for a residential quality, walk-behind mower.

I ended up deciding on the features and accessories that were important to me and selecting a middle of the road model that did have the all-wheel drive feature that would kick in and out depending on the position of the handle that the operator pushes on to get it to move. So, it matches the pace of the operator which is very cool and the wheels don’t spin all the time so you don’t tear up your turf or wear down the drive wheels. The unit started on the first pull each time and runs strong even through the thick, spring-time grass we have at the moment. I’ve used it twice now and am very happy I opted for a few of the features that I thought would really take away a lot of the pain in dealing with the “tool” to get the results I wanted with my “application” – cutting my grass.

At the end of this story, what does my lawn mower buying experience have to do with EXAIR and compressed air products?  The point is this, when you are looking at a Vortex Tube, an Air Knife or perhaps a Line Vac, remember, that we provide all of these items with all the possible accessories that one might need in an application to make for easy and convenient installation. Perhaps it is as simple as installing a suitable filter/separator that we recommend which keeps the air clean and dry or a regulator to give you finite control over blowing force from a Super Air Knife. Maybe you would even opt to install an Electronic Flow Controller in line with your Super Air Nozzle array so that it only operates when a target to be blown off is actually present.

EXAIR products are great at helping our customers manage their compressed air based applications. The accessories are also an invaluable set of tools to make the installation and use of our products a real pleasure. Back that up with our 30 day guarantee and a great group of Application Engineers to answer all your questions about the product and you begin to understand the kind of company that EXAIR strives to be.

Neal Raker, International Sales Manager
nealraker@exair.com

 

Lawnmower image courtesy of jeffcovey.  Creative commons license.

Great Team Make-up

Published on by exaircorpLeave a comment

Last June I wrote a blog titled Teamwork, where my oldest son was just finishing up his first season of tee ball. While he picked up the game pretty quick, much to our surprise, he decided not to play baseball this summer and instead wanted us to sign him up to play pee wee football later in the year.

Football
Are you ready for some football? I certainly am!

A couple weeks ago he was fitted for his football uniform and we got to meet some of the other kids that would be on his team. Turns out one of his teammate’s dad is actually a close friend of mine who was approached about being the head coach for the upcoming season and asked if I would be willing to be an assistant. Now, my brother and I have coached my son’s basketball teams over the last 2 winters so I am somewhat familiar in dealing with 5 – 7 year olds  (our largest roster had 9 kids) and getting them to focus on anything, much less learn the basic fundamentals of a sport.

When our team roster was emailed to us the first thing that stood out to me was that we have 24 kids on the team! What we were thinking? There is ZERO chance that just the 2 of us could handle this group so we started recruiting other assistant coaches. We wanted people we knew had either played the game or at least knew the game and had some previous coaching experience. I personally reached out to my brother who happened to be an all-league defensive lineman and his friend who was the star receiver on their high school teams. In my day, I played running back and linebacker and the head coach played offense and special teams so we were pretty well covered from a coaching standpoint. The real test comes in July when practice starts!

This got me thinking about the Application Engineering team we have assembled here at EXAIR. We can pull information from our diverse backgrounds in industrial pumps, automation, machine tool, gas regulators, power transmission and other industrial products. It is very much a team effort here – if one of us doesn’t know, we ask. If we need to do more research, we will do that too and get back to you. Whatever it takes to provide the best possible solution for your compressed air applications.

To put our team to work for you, give us a call.

Justin Nicholl
Application Engineer
justinnicholl@exair.com
@EXAIR_JN

 

10 20 30 / Whatever image courtesy of Giovanni Arteaga, Creative Commons License

A Better Way To Extend Tool Life

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

Spring is here in the Midwest, and it’s a darn fine time to be outside doing stuff. I took the opportunity the other day to set out a few tomato plants in the pitifully small area we have in our yard that actually gets enough sunlight to be effective at promoting photosynthesis – a term my 7th Grade son picked up on in science class, and I’m hoping will prove to be more interesting…at times…than his video games.

Anyway, in order to do this Real Gardening Work, I had to get some tools out of their winter hibernation. I was pleased to recall that, last fall, I had taken extraordinary measures to clean, lubricate, repair, and properly store my small arsenal of dirt-working implements. So, I didn’t have to:

*push the hand spade’s handle back in, every time I pulled it from the dirt.
*pull the pruner blades back open every time I squeezed them closed.
*reassemble my “garden weasel” tilling tool with bailing wire.

I was able to do all of that, last fall, with glue, oil, and fasteners that I already had in my garage, so it cost me nothing but the time to do it. Which paid off the other day.

There are plenty of ways to extend the life of your tooling – but it all boils down to how you operate and maintain it.  I was able to apply the latter successfully, and I recently had the pleasure of discussing an application with a machine shop’s maintenance supervisor, about applying the former. He was interested in making operational improvements by replacing their messy mist coolant systems, and extending the life of their tooling. It was almost like he’d been reading our Cold Gun literature (full disclosure: he had.)

With four systems to choose from, we can help you get the right one for your application.
With four systems to choose from, we can help you get the right one for your application.

The Cold Gun Aircoolant System has proved to be a highly successful solution to both of these problems. In fact, the improvements in tool life has been documented in this detailed, long-term study by a major university’s Forestry Products Department.

If you’d like to find out more about how an EXAIR Cold Gun Aircoolant System can improve your machining, cutting or grinding operations, give us a call.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
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