Quincy Air Master Portable Compressor Review

[PAToyota]

I’ve had my Quincy QT-5 stationary compressor for eight years now. It has been my only compressor and performs a variety of duties both in the downstairs automotive/metal shop as well as the upstairs woodworking shop and even around the rest of the property through the use of a couple Goodyear 100’ hoses.

Downstairs it runs some of the usual pneumatic tools - impact wrench, needle scaler, sanders - as well as supplying air to the plasma cutter, sandblasting cabinet, pressure pot sandblaster, and the more mundane tasks of inflating tires and using an air gun to blow dust off of things that I am working on.

Upstairs it again is used to supply air guns as well as finish and brad nailers and an airbrush.

Around the property it has been used for framing and roofing nailers, paint guns, and wherever else I might need an air supply. As I live in town on a quarter acre, the use of long air hoses hasn’t been too much of a problem as far as delivering air to the far corners of my property.

However, there have been occasions when family or friends have asked about me doing some work for them and the lack of a compressed air supply at their houses has been a limitation for me. Once it made sense to rent a portable compressor for the job at hand, but mostly I revert back to manual tools.

A couple more projects off site this past spring got me to thinking about portable air a bit more and I started looking into the available options. More often than not, I’m looking at something to run the pneumatic nailers away from my shop so I was mainly looking at the “hotdog” or “pancake” style carpenter’s compressors that you carry around as opposed to the larger “portable” compressors with a larger tank and wheels. I was also looking at electric models as I figured that transporting a gas model in the trunk of a car would be more of a problem as well as having to run it outside and then the requirement of lugging along longer hoses as opposed to setting up the compressor where I was working.

Browsing the local home improvement stores, I turned up a selection of air compressors from Bostitch, Campbell Hausfeld, Craftsman, DeWalt, Hitachi, Husky, Porter-Cable, and Rigid in the range of less than a half horsepower (mainly just for trim nailer use) up to 2 to 3 hp with 1 to 4 gallon tanks (after that you started seeing wheels). You can likely find compressors that still sort of fit into this category outside those parameters, but this describes the bulk of what I was seeing.

The other thing that I took note of was that the majority of these units are oil-less compressors. I have to admit that in general I am not a big fan of them as they tend to be noisier and shorter lived than a lubricated compressor.

Quite by accident, I checked out the Quincy website since I have been so pleased with my QT-5 - just to see if they had portable compressors or if they only stuck to the larger stationary models. On their website, I quickly found that they had their “Air Master” series of portable compressors in both electric and gas models from 1.5 to 8 hp with 4 to 17 gallon tanks (obviously, larger wheeled units with gas engines at the upper end). Of interest to me were their three “hand-carry” units. Two 2 hp electric units and a 4 hp Honda gas engine model.

I also found that they were running a contest to win one of their hand-carry units each month in 2008. I downloaded the brochure and filled out the registration for the contest while I was there just for the heck of it.

Then, I have to admit, I got busy with other things and the idea of a portable compressor got shoved to the back burner.

Imagine my surprise when one Monday morning while I was checking my e-mail I found a message from Quincy saying that I had won the previous month’s drawing for the compressor! And they say that Mondays bring you bad news...

I responded to the e-mail with my shipping information and warm thanks for their generosity. A bit over a week later my faithful UPS lady was lugging a large box up the front steps of my house.

The box contained a Quincy 121H4PNA 2.0 hp electric 4.3 gallon compressor, the air filter (shipped uninstalled due to packaging), an owner’s manual, and a small (just under) 12 fl. oz. bottle of Quin-Cip lubricant. I unpacked everything, read through the owner’s manual, filled the case with the oil, installed the air filter, and set about to trying the compressor out.

 

[PAToyota]

Although I had been using the stationary compressor previously to do the job, I figured that my first trial of the new compressor would be finishing up the hardwood flooring job in my woodworking shop that was a current project. I have been putting in about 650 s.f. of 3/4” T&G hickory flooring and had about a third of it left to do when the compressor arrived.

The instructions called for running the compressor for ten minutes with one of the drain ***** open to break it in before closing the drain **** and allowing it to run under load. Since I did not happen to have a spare quick disconnect handy (since remedied), I grabbed some teflon tape and connected an air hose directly to the compressor and was soon ready for work.

The tool of choice for my flooring project has been a Powernail 445 pneumatic nailer. It takes a pretty healthy dose of air to operate to drive in the 2” cleats. The Quincy compressor is rated at 5.0 cfm at 40 psi, 4.0 cfm at 100 psi, and 3.5 cfm at 125 psi with a maximum working pressure of 125 psig and two tanks for a total capacity of 4.3 gallons. The compressor is a direct drive aluminum setup with cast-iron cylinders and splash lubrication. At 60 lbs, the compressor is solid without being unmanageable. The handle is positioned well to balance the machine, although it was a bit awkward carrying it up a flight of stairs where I had to hold it in front of me rather than at my side.

With the stationary compressor and an 80 gallon tank, the compressor would only kick on once or twice an hour if I was working with any of my pneumatic nailers. Obviously, the smaller tank capacity and lower pressure of the portable unit was going to mean more frequent operation. I’d get 22 “shots” from the flooring nailer running with the regulator at 90 psi before the compressor would kick on again. I kept count for about two dozen cycles and there were two times I got 23 shots and once that I got 21 shots, so things were pretty consistent both with the compressor and the nailer - or their inconsistencies balanced each other out perfectly... Although I could not scare up a stopwatch for the test, refill time was about 20 to 30 seconds.

I also had a chance to use my IR 2135QTiMax impact wrench with the compressor to remove a series of cabinets that I had lag bolted to the floor so that I could get the flooring around them. I figured that with the constant airflow that the compressor would kick on and remain running during this operation. I was surprised when it only ran slightly longer than it did when filling up during the nailing sessions and then shut off again. Granted, I was only taking out a half dozen lag screws in wood rather than busting loose rusty fasteners from some old automotive project, but I was expecting that the impact wrench would task the compressor harder. It is good to know that in a pinch the compressor will handle air tool duty.

 

[PAToyota]

In summary, I am quite pleased with the new addition to my family of Quincy compressors - and not just because this one was free. The suggested retail price is around $300 and I was able to find several places online selling it for as low as $210. There is also a heavy-duty model, the H1214PN which has only slightly higher cfm ratings but uses US electrical components and threaded hardware. It retails for about $350. Both of these are within the $180 to $400 range I was finding for similar (although usually oil-less) compressors found at the local home improvement stores. Based on my experience with the QT-5 and the Air Master so far, I would not hesitate to pick one of these compressors over the home improvement store brands although I’d likely spring for the heavy-duty model if I had to pick for myself.

I must admit to one minor complaint so far. As I mentioned, the contents of the box included a small bottle of their Quin-Cip compressor oil. At just less than 12 fl. oz, this is enough to fill the compressor once. My problem is that their recommended maintenance is to replace the oil at 5 hours and then again at 50 hours of use before settling back to replacing it every three months or 500 hours of use. I’d guess that the 5 hour replacement is overlooked for a lot of consumers because it is less than a full workday for a contractor using the compressor to shingle a roof or such and he likely isn’t going to pick up an extra quart of oil when he picks up the compressor. Although he could buy that extra quart or may possibly have some on hand, I think that having enough oil for not only the first fill but also that first change at 5 hours would go far towards making sure that the service requirements are met.

And for those that would like to try your own luck at winning a compressor, the link to their monthly contest is: Quincy Compressor Contest

 

[russlaferrera]

Congratulations to you!! Free is always good and delivered is better.

 

[manola]

I would not hesitate to pick one of these compressors over the home improvement store brands although I’d likely spring for the heavy-duty model if I had to pick for myself.
sonnerie portable gratuite