Roll your own air compressor?

I was told that high lightning areas got more pinholes. That, and lots of areas of Florida get enough salt to corrode exposed metals. I talked to the Centurylink crew who is trying to track down an intermittent in my phone service a few days ago. He said there are a few very short runs of lead left in this service area, but they no longer do the soldered repairs. Instead, they use the same flooded splice housing made for plastic cables. I got the impression that they can't wait to see those few pieces of lead go away. Some early plastic cable wasn't flooded, and can be pressurized. from what I've been told, they do it at the switch centers, except when a line is damaged and can't maintain pressure.