sight glass on airline drain?

Grant Erwin · 2005-01-23T18:34:57+00:00

I am trying to cobble together a poor boy's air dryer. This is an old oldproject for me. I scrounged most of a roll of 5/8" copper tubing back about1985 and I've been hauling it around ever since. It's survived many moves,two house purchases and one complete marriage, never used. However, I *knew*I would do this someday. I met up with Scott Logan once and bought one ofhis last "Aridifier" air filter units once. I hauled it out last night andlooked at the drain plumbing. Hmm. I looked at the paperwork and saw thisgraphic of an airline drain: looks really cool to me. Not only that, but I have nearly everythingI need to make it. Except the sight glass. Anyone know how such a sightglass might be made (or purchased) and installed on a biggish pipe nipplelike the one in the picture?I got the copper tubing manipulated into a reasonable 20" coil, verticalaxis, with the ends sticking straight up. I also scrubbed all the years ofoxide off the outside of the tubing, figuring it would lower the thermalresistance (that's what they say to do on the copper arms of my spot welderso I figure it would help here too). I used the Armstrong copper tubingpolisher my mom gave me along with a couple of pads of 0000 steel wool.Today my arm is kind of sore, but I have a thing that looks like a weirdtuba down in my basement, and it's SHINY.Today I'm going to cut off the bottom of a black plastic drum and thecopper coil should fit nicely in there. Pix if it works, eternal miseryif it doesn't .. this is all in support of getting my plasma cutter working.I bought one and haven't dared cut with it because there's so much waterin my air, sigh.Grant Erwinin soggy W. Washington

Jan 23, 2005 22 Replies

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yourname 21 years ago

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pkdickman 21 years ago

On an earlier page they say, that the complete sets include the glass. I suspect the order separately part is so they can cut it to length.

Paul K. Dickman

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Pswski 21 years ago

Grant, The picture in the link you provided looks like it's just a holding tank for the water with a drain and a sight gauge. Do you really need a sight gauge with valves at each end of the glass? Wouldn't a gauge like McMaster # 1192K15 (over

10" of sight length, 125 PSI for under $25.00) fullfill your needs if you put one valve upstream from the tank? Paul

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