Bostitch compressor review—Big air CAP1615-OF

Bostitch compressor review—let’s get on with it. Model CAP 1615-OF and how to make the most of a notoriously under-designed, yet essential tool.

No matter what it says on the box, compressors are often simply tanks + motors + gauges + heavy and loud and startling (See below).

Argue with me if you want, what with all the little ‘pancakes’ and punch out ‘hot dogs’ (I’m not making these terms up) that try to remove as much ‘compressor’ from the what compressors do best, there’s room for discussion—and I want to hear from you. Then you have the units that try to hide the compressor: Diamond plate details and wheel kits and handles and stuff that don’t really solve many problems either. What-evs.

I take a different view from most people and it has served me exceedingly well; everything from back yard builds to 48-hour remodels for 10 episodes of a TV show we built for.

For my work, which is remodeling existing, occupied homes and businesses—this means anything from decks to trim to roofing to build-outs that have all those things depending on the day—I go in the other direction and load as much air in there as possible. Enter the Bostitch compressor.

But with a twist.

I don’t drag an Abrams M1A1 style compressor on site like a framer uses. But I do go big with the Bostitch compressor. The Bostitch CAP1615-OF 15-gallon, 200PSI packs a lot of air in a small space (like me) and the result is that the unit kicks a whole pile of butt from small jobs to full-on fire power.  Yet, it’s mobile, stores easily and is relatively quiet*.

*Let’s start with the asterisk. One of the very worst things about remodeling is having a hand-carry style compressor within a nautical mile of where you’re working. They come on like they’ve been struck by lightning. They work so feverishly to re-fill that they vibrate the floor. Then they go quiet until the next time they scare the crap out of you. Not fun for those of us with (or without) a high startle response.

The big boy Bostitch runs fairly quietly and way more smoothly. Or, if you add another hose, silently.

See, I rarely even bring the unit inside where I can hear it. Just the hose and nailer. Because it crams so much air in the tank, I can leave it in another zip code and it still supplies gobs of go-juice through 100-feet of hose. On the TV show, we ran three trim guns off this unit, each 100 feet from the other one all the time.

The high efficiency motor on the unit is just that—and light too. It doesn’t shut down the electrical grid like the guy in the man-hole at Nakatomi Plaza (yippee-kay-ay Die Hard fans) trying to start up, even when it’s cold out. Low draw, high output, and I’m not crawling around in someone’s creepy basement looking for a tripped breaker saying ‘come out to the coats, we’ll get together, have a few laughs’.

It’s also mobile. Way more mobile than it looks too. In fact, even though it has a nice wheel kit, I can easily carry it. I’d argue that it’s easier to carry (grab by the top and bottom, carry horizontally; not in instruction manual…stay with me) than a hand-carry unit, which is like carrying a suitcase designed in Hell (ask anyone; I still love you manufacturers, but if no one tells you then no one tells you).

The Bostitch is up-armored where it needs to be too. First, even if it’s too heavy/awkward to carry for some, its wheels roll nicely, even up and down stairs. And the grab-bar you roll it by also protects the gauges and nipple fairly well in case it tips over**.

**More asterisks? We bought this from a WalMart at 10PM (the PM that’s at night) during a TV build because the unit we had tipped over and the nipple broke off.

So if you want to run roofing guns—we did, several at a time on a volunteer project for NARI—or power down decking or run a gravity-fed paint sprayer, you need air, not features. And you need a fast set-up and you need to not be messing around. The Bostitch high-pressure unit brings brings all that in a smart, bust ‘em up tough package. The Bostitch compressor also has a sweet ball valve to drain the tank.

Mark

A licensed contractor, tool expert, wood and outdoor enthusiast, and elite Spartan Race competitor, he writes about home improvement and tools for national magazines and websites, and teaches hands-on clinics for other remodeling professionals. Check out his book, The Carpenter's Notebook.

See Full Bio