Im looking to pick up an air compressor for my garage.. It won't get that much use.. just enough to do 1-2 paint jobs a year and run some air tools off of it.. I'd also like to spend between $500 and $700 so i have enough money left for a decent air dryer.. the one im looking at is 60 gallon.. 3 horsepower running 11.8 cfm @ 40 psi.... is this big enough to keep up?

 

What you should be doing is looking at the air tools you will be using. On the airtool specs it should tell you the minimum requirement to run it on a compressor. Based on that you can make your decision on what size and psi you could get your compressor.

 

Try Summitracing.com for an idea. Look up some airtools and read the specs. Have fun dude.

 

I'd get a bigger one if you could. Several reasons. One, if you want to do body work and paint, try to stick with a comp that'll do 13-15 cfm min. Reason being most DA's run about 12 cfm. So you're already outrunning the one you're looking at getting. Most guys think you can let it catch up, but the truth is this really wears the hell out your comp. And who wants to listen to the comp run all the time? Second, you can do small jobs with a bigger comp and bigger jobs with bigger comp; you can't do bigger jobs with a smaller comp. You'll never regret going bigger. Another is you can find bigger ones in the price range you're looking at. I just saw a 4.5hp 80 gal at lowes for $600 that moved 17 cfm at 90psi. More than enough for what you want to do. And it only drew 9 amps so you don't need a special breaker or plug in. Check Craigslist too. There's always someone upgrading.

Slim

 

thats exactly what i needed to know.. thankyou