EXAIR Super Air Knives: Customized for You

In a recent blog “EXAIR Super Air Knives: Overview”, I shared the features and benefits that puts the “Super” in the Super Air Knives.  But, let’s not define ourselves by our widest range of lengths and materials that we stock.  EXAIR can also customize the Super Air Knives to fit your requirements.  Many manufacturers like to make their standard items and expect the customers to adapt to their design.  But at EXAIR, customer service is our primary focus.

EXAIR manufactures our products at one location in Cincinnati, Ohio.  So, this gives us the flexibility to do many things like making adaptive configurations with our Super Air Knives.  Here are some examples that our customers requested.

• Special lengths: EXAIR stocks standard incremental lengths from 3” (76mm) up to 108” (2.74 meters) in aluminum, 303SS, and 316SS materials; or 3” (76mm) to 54” (1,372mm) for PDVF Super Air Knives. But sometimes, the Super Air Knife has to fit into a specific area where a standard length will not work.  This is where EXAIR exceeds, and we can make any length metric or imperial between the ranges above.

  

• Other materials: There isn’t a single material that is inert to all chemicals. In some rare cases, the environment can chemically attack our Stainless Steel or PVDF Super Air Knives.  So, a different material may have to be used.  For the customer above, they required a PVC material for a phosphorous environment.

  

• Critical Dimensions: When the Super Air Knives have to adapt inside machines or in tight areas, we can modify the profile.  We have two special applications (reference above) that needed a design change for fit and function.  A curved Super Air Knife was used to hold tubes on a rotary table; and a thin Super Air Knife that was only 11/16” (17.5mm) thick cleaned a mold for circuit chips.

  

• Add-ons: EXAIR understands the importance of connecting to our Super Air Knives to get the greatest performance.  Our stock product has ¼” NPT inlet air ports along the bottom and one at each end.  We have ¼” – 20 threaded holes for mounting along the bottom as well.  But if you want threaded holes in a specific location for mounting or need the inlet air ports to be metric threads, EXAIR can accommodate these features.

  

• Situational Applications:  Super Air Knives can have complex or simple changes depending on the application.  As an example, EXAIR created a design for a double-sided Super Air Knife to blow a laminar stream of air 180 degrees apart (reference photo above).   A simpler proposal was to replace the cap screws in a 316SS Super Air Knife with hygienic screws for food applications to remove crevices for bacterial growth.
• OE Protection: In today’s market, it is important to protect your business.  At EXAIR, we can make a special Super Air Knife to blow, dry, or cool in your custom machines.  With a unique model number, EXAIR can help support and protect your business for future and replacement business.

Remember, your imagination is the beginning of creation.  If you cannot find a specific design to be used in your compressed air application, don’t give up.  Contact an Application Engineer at EXAIR to see if we can help you.  We have a team of engineers that can evaluate the fit and function to create a “Super” blow-off solution.  For the customers above, we were able to propose a unique Super Air Knife to work in their application; not the other way around.

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb