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Vacuum cleaning involves some surprisingly complex physics. All else being equal, dense particles need higher air speeds to move them. Large particles need higher air speeds than small ones. The relationship between power and airspeed when increasing air speed through a system follows a cube...

Cast Iron. No quick action. Good vice, but lighter than most of the American 8" vices by a good margin. The most useful thing about it IME is that the wide jaws and relatively narrow slide mean that it'll hold fairly large-section long items vertically. Not something for being beaten on with big...

What is the blower? A fan follows the "fan laws": flow varies in direct proportion to the speed, pressure varies as the square of the speed and power varies as the cube of the speed. Fans are "quadratic torque" loads and many VFDs are rated for a certain size of motor for "constant torque"...

As said, a turkey baster works. The camera blowers can also be work pretty well. https://www.dwyer-inst.co.uk/Product/Test-Adjust--Balance/CalibrationPumps/ModelA-350 These are about the best I've found for gas analyzers. They'll work upstream or downstream of the instrument.

Sounds like you probably just had a bit of **** in there this time, but I'd get a spare anyway. The moving part (pastel) is usually some sort of polymer with a bit of give in it. After a time, they can harden up and fail to conform to the seat, or even crack, particularly if they've got hot from...

On the bottom (usually) of the pressure switch will be an unloader valve. This connects to the pump side of the Non-Return Valve with a small-bore tube. The pump connects to ghe NRV with a larger-bore tube. While the compressor is running, the unloader valve is closed. When the compressor...

Remarkably few of the drilling problems I've seen have actually been due to poor drills. Some certainly, but mostly it's been poor technique. Use stub length drills (I think they are referred to as Screw Machine Length Drills over your side of the pond). They are less prone to breakage. It's...

Old filter restricting airflow and limiting the volume of air drawn in, therefore peak pressure at tdc is lower, the compressor isn't working as hard and doesn't trip? If so, either the old filter was restrictive by design, or there's some other fault the filter was suppressing. Are the motor...

Those Knipex high-leverage flush cutters appear to be for soft metals and plastics. I am pretty sure I've never seen a flush-cutting plier for stainless. Harder/tougher wire needs even harder cutting edges. Hardness tends to go hand-in-hand with brittleness. Flush cut geometry doesn't give...

The common drill indexes I see here in the UK are 1-13mm x 0.5mm and 1-6mm x 0.1mm. The equivalent of the 1/16"-1/2" x 1/64" set is the 1-13mm x 0.5mm.

File set on Zoro UK. Seems too good to be true, but may be worth a punt? Current price is showing as £6.29 incl VAT. https://www.zoro.co.uk/shop/tools-and-machining/file-sets/16-piece-second-cut-engineers-file-set/p/ZT1031553X

I've always had Bosch corded jigsaws and been quite happy with them. I got a Makita DJV180 (the same as the XVJ03) brushed 18v cordless for work, perhaps 5 years ago, as we use that battery system. I haven't had the corded ones out since, except for my "Bosch GST25 Metal Professional" when I...

VFD every time, assuming the motor can cope with the waveform and there is nothing that needs mains Voltage for control. If it's practicable in your case, consider a VFD setup with a trailing control pendant and a 3-phase socket on the output. It's a bit more hassle initially, but means you...

Biggest problem I can see is that you have a 100-gallon that currently contains Propane. Even if it's nominally empty, it'll still be full of Propane at atmospheric pressure. You then propose to pressurize it with air so that it contains a compressed Propane/Air mixture? Lower and Upper...

The sharpening specialists will sell you tiny amounts of their recommended oils at grossly over-inflated prices. Mostly what is needed is something that'll keep the pores in the stones from clogging. Kerosene works. 3-in-1 works, mineral oil works. The modern low-viscosity synthetic multigrade...

As said above, if you've found that the one you've tried works well, stick with it. Bear in mind that the fast spiral version is "more aggressive". That probably means it needs more torque to drive it effectively. If buying a set, or a selection, you need to consider what you are going to be...

How old is the motor? What killed the FM50? I've always tended to oversize VFDs a little, mainly because I've experienced noise issues in the past and want to keep the option of upping the switching frequency. As I understand things, "transformer hum" is caused by each of the transformer...

Learn to sharpen whatever you get. Look after them as well as you can. If you can't be arsed sharpening and looking after them, just buy a really cheap pair every year.

Over here, the folk who use these things professionally tend to go for either Felco or one of the Japanese manufacturers. It is worth noting that they need to fit your hand: simply buying whatever someone else recommends is not a good approach, however much you trust their judgement, in the...

What autodrain have you got? There are various different designs. Most of the ones I've used have been either mechanical float-operated or timed-solenoid valves. On properly big stuff, the mechanical float ones are pretty good IME, but for anything under about 10 HP and 200-gallons, or not...