When it comes to welding, people don’t normally think that they’d need air tools on the job. Besides the most essential things they need – like the welding helmet, gloves, clothing, and protection -, they also need a variety of other tools.
For example, you’ll usually see a welder handling a chop saw, a pair of angle grinders, squares, a level, tape measure and so on. However, there are quite a few air tools that a welder might need and not know it – yet!
This is the main reason why, today, we’ll introduce you to the Air Tools Guy and to all of the air tools that you may need to look into as a welder!
Contents
Air Rachet Wrenches
These are entry-level air wrenches that come with 70lb-ft of torque. It makes undoing tight nuts much easier.
Air Impact Wrenches
Impact wrenches, unlike rachet ones, come with 180lb-ft of torque, making them better at undoing heavy torque bolts. Rachet wrenches are ideal for low-to-medium torque bolts.
Air Screwdrivers
Such tools use compressed air and provide consistent torque when driving fasteners – screws – into workpieces.
Air Drills
Air drills can be used to drill holes of small diameter into the material that you work on, especially if it is quite thick.
Air Die Grinders
Welders use grinders to remove material from the piece they are working on. A die grinder comes with a rotating spindle that features a collet holding the cutting bit. It rotates at very high speeds.
Air Angle Grinders
Angle grinders, on the other hand, can be used to cut tile/ stucco/ pavers, grind metal, and rout out mortar. On top of that, they can also sharpen, polish, and sand.
Air Sanders/ Polishers
As the name implies, air sanders/polishers are used to smooth surfaces via abrasion with sandpaper and such. Air models of classic polishers are often preferred because they are lightweight and come with little to no hazards.
Air Belt Sanders
A belt sander can be used on wood, stone, plastic, pottery surfaces, glass, and metal materials.
Air Hammers
If you need to cut or break metal objects apart, then you need an air hammer. Such a tool can also be used to carve in stone.
Air Chipping Hammers
Very essential to a welder, a chipping hammer is specially designed to remove welding spatter and slag from along side welds.
Air Needle Scalers
Much like the chipping hammers, needle scalers can remove paint, rust, weld spatter, and dirt from multiple types of metal surfaces. This tool consists of a bundle of metal rods that pulsate.
The Bottom Line
As you can see, nowadays you have air tools that can replace most of the classic tools used in welding. Welders tend to make this change mainly because air tools, in some cases, come with less to no risks or hazards – fire hazard, for example.
On top of that, air tools are fairly easy to use as well and don’t require much training.
Therefore, before stocking up on welding tools, make sure that you give our list a good read and determine whether you want any air tools in your welding set!
