Thanks to Kirk Edwards, Application Engineer Manager at EXAIR Corporation for his contribution to the UniTherm blog. EXAIR Corporation manufactures compressed air products for industry with a focus on efficiency, safety and process improvement.

My first experiences with compressed air were many years ago and involved welding gas tanks. My friend’s dad was a welding supply salesman in Grand Rapids, MI and we had full access to his welding rigs in the garage. This generally included large tanks of oxygen, acetylene, helium and regular compressed air. We had a few favorite activities with all this gas. One, for when the parents were away, involving helium to lift a plastic bag of acetylene, a long string (wick), and a lighter – enough said? The other was blowing air at each other or using a needle nozzle to blow the air on our skin and watch the cool indent it made. We always knew raising flammable bags of acetylene in the air was a bad idea, but couldn’t resist feeding our youthful pyromania. And we never gave a second thought to blowing air at each other or onto our skin. Come to find out that’s a really bad idea too… [Read more…]