- Thread starter Jixer
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Pete.
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CP air line couplers (claw fittings) go to at least 1" bore coz the grit blasting kit needs 1" hose and couplings. You gotta use whip checks for air coz they store 10 atmospheres at full pressure and releasing it unchecked snds the heavy end flying about. Much bigger air lines are available but they generally use cam lock fittings which are very secure when clipped shut.
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those do look good, might buy a couple myself to test
£3 for the male..... £14 for the female ... female more £ than I expected but still going to try a couple... would be nice to go between the compressors and air tank then the connections out of the air tank
brightspark
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i use claw fittings because i use 3/4 hoses half inch and 3/8th .have adaptors for 3 types of fittings which is handy . i once went to un couple the airline and it was stuck and wouldnt come apart no matter what 
then i found out why . it was still full of air and the comp had cut out and i hadnt shut the ball valve off so no chance of getting them apart when in use. they press together and turn and double click so no chance of knocking them and un coupling in use
then i found out why . it was still full of air and the comp had cut out and i hadnt shut the ball valve off so no chance of getting them apart when in use. they press together and turn and double click so no chance of knocking them and un coupling in use
Jelly_Sheffield
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
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I used to do some work for a small heritage railway, which did not have a particularly strong safety culture...
One of the few rigourously observed safety rules was "Claw fittings must be pinned and tethered".
When I asked why that was so important to them, one of the old guys just went:
"do thee want half a pound of brass whipped into y' skull at 90 miles an hour lad, cos tha' **Language**ing dunt"
Never could convince them of the merits of following safe rigging practices, or fitting flashback arrestors to their acetylene cylinders though...
Pete.
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When I was younger I used to scoff at the idea of flashback arrestor because it was said that they stop any fire burning back to the regulator. Then I did some training and found out that it travels up the pipe at around the speed of sound.
brightspark
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i aquired a pair for my bottles
ive had a few burn backs and tripped the arrestors twice . god help if i hadnt fitted them .a mate uses his without them 
wouldnt care i gave him a set to put on and he hasnt bothered just been lucky i suppose
Erie Fred
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Interesting.
Was watching a video on U-toob, showing hump yard operations, they would unhook the coupler (throw the lever), and as the cars separated, the glad hands pulled themselves off.
Jelly_Sheffield
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
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This was more in the workshops and sheds, I didn't deal with the trackside stuff much because I'm not a big enough train nerd...
Although all the trains they ran had steam brakes... So unlike vacuum or air not something that you could just allow to disconnect itself without a self-sealing coupler.
250psi steam being several orders of magnitude scarier than 150psi air and all.
Erie Fred
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250 psi steam.....never knew that.
I thought there was either George (Westinghouse) with 100 psi air, or the Vacuum system (like for India Rail)
interesting.
Jelly_Sheffield
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
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Not a particularly common system (for good reason) they also had vacuum brakes on some carriages.
Erie Fred
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Yes, nowadays with trains over 100-120 cars, by the time you got to the end, you'd have nothing if it was steam.
Jelly_Sheffield
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
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Yes, and direct acting too, so fail deadly, not fail safe.
I can see the appeal to an early railway engineer of being able to slam the brakes on with tremendous force and immediacy using extremely high pressure steam when designing something for a steep industrial line with short heavy trains... Not so practical if you need to keep starting and stopping, especially with gradual deceleration.
If I recall correctly they generally left it disconnected and used radio contact with a brake van combined with the loco brakes, but were intent on preserving the system for posterity.
