I saw this ad on ebay and I'm tempted:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Air-knife-c..._DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ec338090aThose things are like $1200 a pop. To make it easy to dig up lines. I am not sure I want to add the price of compressor rental to estimates. It sure as hell would make digging hard ground easier.
Anybody have experience with these?
I suppose it really depends on what your usual soil is like.
Hendo, I never heard of such a thing.
Looks interesting, though. Sure, it's easy to spend someone else's money ... but I sure hope you get one, use it, and let the rest of us know!
I am still trying to figure what you do with it. I can see some value for crossing a flagged area in the right of way to blow the dirt away from a buried utility but I don't see you digging much of a trench with it. Around here it would just be a sand storm generator.
One suggested use is troubling, "ground rod installation". Ground rods need to be driven, not buried.
Only ones I have ever seen use an air knife are the public works guys for cleaning out the joint lines on concrete roads before they re-caulk them.
I may have also seen the hydro vac crews using them at some sites instead of a water jet.
Around here it would just be a sand storm generator.
I think you would eat a lot of dirt.
I wonder how it would do in heavy, wet clay soil. The kind that sticks to your shovel and builds up on your boots until you can't walk.
The one I was curious about was southern Maryland bank run gravel and clay. It is basically concrete with a little clay replacing the cement.
Looks like you could almost make your own. Mach 2 and no sonic boom? Hmm..