Tag: industrial safety air guns

VariBlast Safety Air Guns For The Ultimate In Operator Control

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

EXAIR’s mission to be “easy to do business with” is downright invasive to our work culture here. Our Order Entry department answer the phone, so whether you’re calling to place an order or just check price and availability, a live person picks up on the call and can begin helping you right away. If you have questions about your application and/or product selection, they’ll transfer you to an Application Engineer like me, who has ALL the answers. OK, sometimes those answers reside in the spaces of our Engineering, Production, Shipping, or Quality departments, but I can reach ANY of those areas in 45 seconds or less (yes, I just timed myself on that). We ship stock product same day with orders received by 2pm Eastern Standard/Daylight Time, and our 30-Day Unconditional Guarantee makes trying something out risk-free to you.

One of the most underrated ways that EXAIR is easy to do business with is this: all of our products are as EXTREMELY user-friendly with regard to installation, operation, and maintenance. You don’t need to contract with millwrights, pipe fitters, engineering firms, or mechanical (or electrical) contractors to install ANY of our engineered compressed air products. In most cases, you just need basic hand tools.

The part about “ease of operation” is especially true about our VariBlast Precision, and Compact Safety Air Guns. They can be adequately supplied with a standard 1/4″ or 3/8″ ID (depending on the hose length, and the Nozzle installed) compressed air hose. Rebuild Kits are on the shelf, which can restore worn trigger assemblies to ‘as new’ operation in minutes. And, the variable flow trigger means the operator has full control of the flow & force, over the entirety of the range of operation.

The VariBlast Precision Safety Air Guns are durable & lightweight. They can be fitted with any of our three smallest Super Air Nozzles: the Atto, the Pico, and the Nano, depending on the amount of flow & force, and the size of the airflow pattern you need:

Atto, Pico, and Nano Super Air Nozzles are available in corrosion resistant 316SS, or non-marring PEEK thermoplastic.

The gooseneck extension is available in 6″, 12″, and 20″ lengths. They can all be fitted with Chip Shields as well, for full compliance with OSHA Standard 1910.242(b).

VariBlast® Precision Safety Air Guns 2022 Professional Tool & Equipment News PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD WINNER

Like the VariBlast Precision Safety Air Guns, the VariBlast Compact Safety Air Guns feature a variable flow trigger, giving the operator precise control over the air flow & force. Also like the Precisions, the Compacts are available with the Atto, Pico, and Nano Super Air Nozzles, and any of our other 1/8 NPT engineered Air Nozzles:

All of these can be fitted with rigid extensions from 6″ to 72″ in length, and Chip Shields.

The VariBlast Compact Safety Air Guns can also be fitted with EXAIR’s Model 1004SS Back Blow Air Nozzle, which is ideal for cleaning out small diameter tubes, pipes, channels and holes, from 1/4″ to 1″ inside diameter. These all come with Chip Shields and your choice of a 6″, 12″, 24″, or 36″ rigid extension.

Atto Back Blow Nozzles can blow out recesses or holes as small as 1/4″ in diameter.

Compressed air isn’t cheap, and if you use cheap, non-engineered blow offs, you’re going to pay WAY more to operate them than you have to. If you want to find out how the VariBlast Precision or Compact Safety Air Guns – or any EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air Products – can help you get the most out of your compressed air system, give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
Visit us on the Web
Follow me on Twitter
Like us on Facebook

One Safety Air Gun, Hundreds of Possibilities

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

In case you are new to the EXAIR blog, we talk a lot about the intelligent and safe use of compressed air. Most manufacturing facilities in the world have point-of-use compressed air and that will also equal to any that do, probably have a handheld blowgun in their facility which may or may not be safe and efficient. This may very quickly be one of the most common tools used throughout some facilities and is often the most overlooked when safety and efficiency are a concern.

The Soft Grip Safety Air Gun is a versatile safety air gun from EXAIR that can easily replace most of the loud and inefficient blowguns in a facility. The option to choose from 14 different engineered air nozzles, most of which are also available in multiple materials to fit the application just right, will give the ability to fit any operator’s requirement for force and flow. Couple that with the ability to add one of 8 different extension lengths or 6 different stay set hose lengths, and it will give the operators exactly what they need for those hard-to-reach areas while staying out of harm’s way. Lastly, the chip shield adds yet another layer of protection for the users and can be adjusted up and down on the extension to fit each application’s needs.

EXAIR’s Free Efficiency Lab

If you aren’t sure whether the handheld blowguns in your facility would meet or exceed OSHA standards for dead-end pressure and allowable noise level exposure, contact an Application Engineer today and send one to us for a FREE Efficiency Lab and find out which EXAIR Safety Air Gun is going to meet or exceed OSHA standards and your expectations.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Optimizing Your Compressed Air Usage With Engineered Products

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

The first new car I ever bought was a 1995 Ford Escort Wagon. I’ve mentioned this before in posts about preventive maintenance, the importance of proper filtration, and brand loyalty. Those blogs were primarily about my experiences with that little red wagon, but today I wanted to discuss the primary reason I bought the car in the first place.

I had a 50-mile round trip commute to work, and my old Pontiac Grand Prix with the small block V8 engine was a great ride for sure. Some quick math, however, showed that if I went with something with better gas mileage, I could save quite a bit of money on gasoline. My calculation was almost $1,000 a year, just on driving back & forth to work. After figuring in the rest of my driving for the first year, it was more like $1,400 a year.

Similar to my “upgrade” to a more fuel efficient vehicle, upgrading blowoff, cooling and drying operations using engineered compressed air products is Step #3 in EXAIR’s Six Steps To Optimizing Your Compressed Air System. We’ve assigned an order to these steps in accordance with basic good engineering practice & protocol, but it’s not necessary to follow them in any particular order. In fact, all six steps really don’t apply to every single compressed air system.

Step #3 does apply to most systems, though. I spent a fair amount of time in all sorts of industrial facilities in my previous roles, servicing industrial & chemical pumps, and almost all the time, regardless of the industry or the size of the facility, the maintenance part of the facility used air guns. However, I don’t recall ever seeing an engineered nozzle on one before I came to EXAIR. Since then, I’ve worked with a BUNCH of users to dramatically reduce compressed air consumption by replacing their cheap and inefficient air guns with EXAIR Safety Air Guns, or by retrofitting EXAIR Super Air Nozzles onto their existing air guns. We actually carry adapters to fit our Super Air Nozzles to a number of readily commercially available air guns for that very purpose.

The five families of EXAIR handheld blowoff products include VariBlast Precision & Compact, Soft Grip, Heavy Duty, SuperBlast, and TurboBlast Safety Air Guns. They’re available with a range of engineered Super Air Nozzles, Extensions, and Chip Shields.

In addition to air guns & nozzles, our Air Knives have a long history of replacing drilled pipes & pipe manifolds with inefficient nozzles used to make a curtain of air flow. The following chart details the savings you can realize from the use of a 24″ Super Air Knife instead of similar devices for a 24″ wide air curtain:

Even though an electric powered blower will use less electricity than the amount of electricity an air compressor uses to supply an engineered product like the Super Air Knife, the maintenance costs make the total cost of ownership eclipse that of the engineered Air Knife.

Our Case Study Library (registration required, but it’s free & fast) documents many real-world situations where customers worked with us to gather & publish “before/after” documentation, proving out the benefits of Step #3. I encourage you to check those out, and if you think you might have an opportunity to do a Case Study with us, we offer discounts or credit for that…give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
Visit us on the Web
Follow me on Twitter
Like us on Facebook

EXAIR is Offering a Promotional Item With the Purchase of a Safety Air Gun! 

Published on by johnball2014Leave a comment

From August 1st to September 30th, 2023, with qualified purchases, EXAIR will be giving away a 1” Flat Super Air Nozzle with a purchase of our Safety Air Guns, including the VariBlast Precision, VariBlast Compact, Soft Grip, Heavy Duty, Super Blast and TurboBlast Safety Air Guns.  We are promoting the importance of safety in the workplace with the EXAIR Safety Air Guns.   

Compressed air guns are one of the most commonly used pneumatic products in manufacturing plants.  They are used at workstations to blow off debris and clean parts and tools.  Because of the large quantities that are used in a plant; they are the most targeted by OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration).  The majority of the common brands of air guns fail to comply with two common violations, rule 29CFR 1910.95(a) for noise levels and rule 29CFR 1910.242(b) for dead-end pressure.  The reason for this is due to the type of nozzle that comes with the compressed air gun.  OSHA fines can be very expensive, and you can alleviate these penalties by purchasing an EXAIR Safety Air Gun.  Safety is everyone’s responsibility: management, the HSE department (Health and Safety Engineer), supervisors, and even the operators.   

With EXAIR Safety Air Guns, we supply an efficient, effective, and, most importantly, safe air nozzle with all of our air guns.  They are CE Compliant and exceed the OSHA sound level and dead-end pressure requirements, even above 30 PSIG (2 bar).  With substandard air guns, the operators will have to listen to loud noises all day or wear hearing protection.  And for the dead-end pressure; the EXAIR nozzles are engineered to not allow the operator to completely block the end of the nozzle with their hand or skin.  This is very important because if the pressure exceeds 30 PSIG, air can penetrate the skin and cause an air embolism.  With our design, the compressed air is able to escape, and the pressure against the skin will not exceed 30 PSIG, even with the compressed air pressure set at 100 PSIG.  Safety is a major concern for all of our customers and a priority for EXAIR in manufacturing our products.   

As I mentioned above, the nozzles are one of the most significant parts of making a compressed air gun safe and OSHA compliant.  Combining our engineered nozzles with a quality air gun makes the EXAIR Safety Air Guns one of the best products in the market.  We currently have six different styles; the VariBlast Precision, VariBlast Compact, Soft Grip, Heavy Duty, Super Blast, and TurboBlast Safety Air Guns.  These Safety Air Guns are ergonomically designed to comfortably fit in your hand; and they come with quality trigger mechanisms and a durable valve assembly.  The VariBlast Precision Safety Air Guns are great for tight spaces and clearing out small holes.  The VariBlast Compact Safety Air Guns have a cast aluminum body for rugged use with our smaller air nozzles.  The Soft Grip Safety Air Guns provide extra comfort for long, extended uses, and the Heavy Duty Safety Air Guns are rugged, heavy duty industrial air guns with nozzles for larger forces.  The Super Blast and TurboBlast Safety Air Guns use our largest nozzles for cleaning large areas quickly.  In combination with the EXAIR nozzles, the Safety Air Guns can offer another important attribute; we can save you money!!!  Compressed air is very expensive to make, and with our Safety Air Guns, we use less compressed air but still create a strong blowing force.  We do this by entraining the free ambient air into the air stream.  If you increase the mass of air at the target, it will give you a hard-hitting force to remove debris from surfaces or clean tools and holes.  The amplification ratio can be as high as 25 to 1.  That means that for every one part of compressed air that it uses, the EXAIR Nozzles will entrain 25 parts of free ambient air.  This will add mass to the airstream to give a powerful impact.  Also, the payback period for using an EXAIR Nozzle with our Safety Air Guns can be within weeks due to the savings in electrical costs from your air compressor.  With EXAIR products, we were able to partner with Energy Star and power facilities.  For the amount of energy saved, some power companies offer rebates for using EXAIR products.       

A substandard blow-off gun is unsafe, loud, and wasteful.  EXAIR Safety Air Guns can help improve these situations.  They are OSHA compliant, very safe, and very quiet.  They use less compressed air, which saves you money.  And with a variety of different nozzles, they can better fit your application to decrease downtime.  In the U.S. and Canada, EXAIR offers a 30-day unconditional guarantee on our cataloged items so you can try them out.  You can see for yourself how effective these compressed air guns can be.  If you need help matching the best Safety Air Gun to your application, you can contact an Application Engineer.  And during the next two months, take advantage of the free 1” Flat Super Air Nozzle, a $59.00 complimentary gift.     

John Ball
Application Engineer

Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb