So, is an air compressor totally worthwhile nowadays?

 Some time ago, about a year ago to be fairly precise, I was advised by a guy who was gonna do some spray painting for me, that I needed to invest in an air compressor for him to use.  If you scroll back through some earlier posts you will notice I bought this unit:

It was on special on eBay for $399 and I saved a whopping 45 percent on the unit. 

And so far it has proven to be totally excellent. I have used it plenty of times when bead blasting and spray paining panels (with very poor results- but I blame the cheap guns from Supercheap Auto on that one) 

The retired guy did use it a few times on some panels with good results using his own guns, and then I fired him on account of him taking two days to cut and shape one single piece of steel plate. And at $300 a day, that wasn't adding up so well.

But, back to the compressor. Apart from the fact that it is a nice thing to have, because it aesthetically looks nice in the garage, and (used to) serve a purpose, it IS a bit of a big thing in my small space and it IS noisy AF and the guy next door is a shift worker, and so on. PLUS, when I look around at other spray painting options, I see a lot of people using electric machines and cordless machines doing a reasonable job of things. And I don't mean only painting. 

I mean, you can buy a decent electric spray gun setup for under $100 and it will probably work better than my setup. Plus, it's portable and heaps quieter. 

And what about air tools? With the progress these cordless power packs are progressing, there seems barely a need for a compressor any more. I don't need to pump tyres up, and if I do, I just go down to the service station. I'm more or less done with spray painting as I have primered everything and I will NOT be painting the truck. I never used it for grinding, cutting and only used it a few times for bead blasting but I found it very dangerous and stopped using it (the glass beads positively got in everywhere, even under sealed eye goggles and that scared the shit out of me). 

I use an angle grinder ( a cheap corded Ozito brand thing that works well), cordless Dremel and an assortment of corded and cordless drills, and really not a lot else. I really don't see the point in having one?

I guess it will soon be on Facebook marketplace...