A Reely Good Improvement

So I've had a compressor for a while, and it's been serving me well.

But unfortunately it hasn't been serving me much. You see, it's tucked away against the wall there, and so to actually use it I need to:

1. Wheel it out in range of an outlet.
2. Unwind the annoying air hose that spends more of its time tangled than straight.
3. Plug it in and wait for the tank to fill.
4. Realize that the air hose is too short to reach where I need it, so unplug the compressor and wheel it over to where I'm actually doing stuff.
5. Wheel the compressor back over to the wall when I run out of air.

So more often than not, I just avoid using it.

But that all changes today. Today I upgrade.

First step is to install a 90 degree adapter on the air outlet, pointing towards the rear of the tank. The reason for this will become apparent later.

Next up was installing the new 50 foot retractable hose reel, which involved adding a little 10 foot whip to actually reach from the reel to where the compressor would be. It is a little silly that they only include a 3 foot whip on the hose when it's intended to be mounted 5-8 feet above the ground.

I did have to make a run to the hardware store for some lag screws, but other than that the installation went smoothly.

Finally, the compressor is slid into its home.

And here we see why I needed the right-angle adapter, because otherwise the whip would poke straight into the side of my tool chest.

Bringing it all together, I also installed a hook (left over from the previous owner) to hang up the old air hose, just in case I end up 15 feet too short of where the 50 foot hose reel can reach.

I expect the old hose to collect a bit of dust.