Technical Alternatives to Oxy/Acetylene Torch??????

I have to admit I have emptied 2 or 3 tanks in my life from leaving the valve on. So...we could average it out to 1 every 15 years or so ! Now days I try to remember to turn it off even between welds or cuts. Remember is the key word here, sometimes I go to the tool box and stand there looking silly because I can't remember what I went to get !

 

That guy with the induction set up is very lucky doing his experiments. If the tools he uses to poke the metal couples with the induction of the coils he will end up on his ASS in a jiffy. Saw a guy in our lab describe this process to a group of visitors one day. His mistake was using a lead pencil and pointed to close to the coils to show the visitors. Next moment he was flopping like a fish on the ground. Never knew what hit him. He never got that close to the induction coils again.

 

I may have missed a post, but don’t recall induction coils prior?

Edit: You must have been referring to the way to heat that was posted earlier.

 

I have a mig that has had the tank left on for years now. After I installed it, the valve got stuck so I couldn't turn it off. Lucky for me, it don't leak. When it finally goes empty, I will make sure I get a different tank.

 

I've bought ten tanks in the last five years at auctions. Usually pay less than $50.00 each and some have been full. Pretty much all the tanks that are smaller than the large size are private tanks and they are just exchanged by the dealer. I've only been told my tank was expired once in the last thiry years by a little shop on the weekend. I told him to fuck off and traded it in on Monday at Airco witout a word. Airco recertifies their tanks when they are due. This recert. charge is a bunch of BS because if you trade in a new tank, you don't get a new tank in return or one with the same expiration date. You could get one that only has 6 months left and you turned one in that had several years to go.
The Haz Mat fee they charge is another rip off. They pay this charge once a year and it's a set fee kind of like a buisness license fee. It doesn't matter if they sell one bottle or a thousand, it's the same amount. Another way to pad their bill and profit. I go to a small shop in Portland and they don't charge this fee.
Another thing is to exchange bottles with differnt gases. I've exchanged oxygen bottles for argon bottles of the same size. They have to drain the empty bottle and perge it before they refill it so it doesn't matter what gas they put in it.
One last thing. It seems from some of the comments here that some people don't know the proper way to use a oxy-acet setup or even the proper use of a pressured tank. A tank could have over 3000# pressure in it when full and if you have your guage open, that sudden pressure into the guage could cause it to explode. There have been cases of oxy-acet tanks blowing up because of improper use.
If you don't know what your doing, go online and read up on the proper and safe way to use your setup.

 

I was a sub-dealer for the same company for 30 years (now retired, I turned all 47 tanks I had here in Oct 31, this year).
In 30 years, I've never seen a cylinder without a top collar. Nearly all of the old cylinders have names on those collars, most new ones from the company I dealt with (old school been around a very long time) still had their name on the collars, but generic cylinders from other sources don't have a name on the collar. Some companies over the years have a plastic ring with their company name on them affixed to the collar, I couldn't accept those tanks, so I never paid much attention to them.

Also, in the 30 years, I only ever remember 3 or 4 cylinders that needed to be recertified. Most of those were new customers with very old tanks, and the last one was 3 or 4 years ago. I know they billed a few for the recertification's, but I don't remember the cost. If a customer I didn't remember seeing a new customer before and they came in with a cylinder that was 10 or more years out of certification, I'd tell the customer the company might charge them for the recert. Most were OK with that.

The story was, most companies wrote off the certification process as a cost of doing business. About 15 years ago, a new company (AGA Gasses) bought the business of a long time old company (Blackhawk). The story goes they paid a lot of money for the business. Blackhawk wasn't vey good at keeping up with cylinder certifications. After the sale was complete, the government made the new owners bring all the outdated cylinders into certification, which supposedly cost more then they paid for the company. But then every time their trucks came in, more cylinders were outdated. Blackhawk was easy to do business with, they had long term leases, no extra fees, just exchange your empty with anyone that had full cylinders and carry on. They had lots of cylinders on the market, apparently, most of which had outdated certifications.
To save the new company, they instituted immediate policy changes. The 1st was dealing with cylinder ownership/leases. When ever someone turned in a cylinder, they had to prove with a receipt, they either owned the cylinder, or had made a recent lease payment. If you owned the cylinder, they charged you a recertification fee for each cylinder, if you had a recent lease payment receipt, you were OK. If you didn't have a receipt, they determined you stole the cylinder from a job site and confiscated the cylinder, and you didn't have one anymore. You would have to start over with a new much shorter, and much more expensive lease with a cylinder deposit. Also, you could no longer buy a cylinder from them.
The entire industry followed suite. The company I dealt with decided they would let the old customers slide, but would go with the lease set up for new customers from that point on.

Recent years, any oxy, mixed, or pure welding gas cylinder 100 CF or smaller has been deemed as being "customer owned". If you got one from me, or from someone else, you paid the first place for the cylinder. Any cylinders bigger then that were assumed to be rented. New customers I collected a deposit of $100 per cylinder and $58 1st year annual lease per cylinder. Then I added the cost of the gas, and sales tax. Returning customers I charged the cost of the gas, and tax. The lease issue was between the company and the customer. I did have several customers that would stop by and make the payment for their lease through me. The Act cylinders had to be a # 3 or smaller were also considered "customer owned". Customer owned were based solely on the size of the cylinder. If the customer owned the larger cylinder, that was between the customer and the company. Any new customer had provide proof of ownership to the company. I would tell them to expect to provide proof or they would bill them for a lease. All of the cylinders that passed through my shop had the company name on the top collar or a sticker with the company name on it on that collar, regardless if the cylinder was "customer owned" or leased

There was a comment about Hazmat fees. I was told I could charge up to $10 per cylinder if I wanted to. The company would add the Hazmat fee to my commission check. I never collected a hazmat fee. Speaking of the commission check, I got commission check for 20% of the gas cost, per cylinder that passed through my shop. For that 20%, I was expected to do the paper work, collect the fees, store the cylinders, and keep the full separated from the empties. I was suppose to call the driver the day before with a list of cylinders I needed replaced and then turn the paper work and the fees over to their company truck driver when he exchanged the empties with the full cylinders. I also assisted the customer with loading and unloading their cylinders.

I never knew how much that monthly check was going to be, so I always considered it as a bonus check. Some months were really nice, some were rather small, but every month that mystery bonus check showed up in the mail. The best part of the whole deal was whenever I needed a full cylinder, it was here on the grounds, and I didn't have to pay for it until the truck came. I did pay the listed cost and the sales tax for each cylinder I used just like everyone else did, it made the paper work easier. I also enjoyed a discount on stuff I bought from them and usually it was delivered to me.

During the really busy years, the company truck was here every week. Then it dropped to every other week. The last 4 or 5 years I called them when I had returns.

 

Interesting story Gene. I have 6 tanks now, none came with a receipt, so I would be shit outa luck in your neighborhood !. After the fire I bought a used mig welder tank included, then at a country junk yard I saw an acetylene tank laying on the ground and of coarse no scrapper would sell an oxygen tank, but an acetylene tanks is no value to them, 25 bucks I think. I got another from a friend for free, and one with the used tig welder, another from an auction, etc. Now that they have all been cycled a few times, I own them. For fun, years ago when I dabbled in "precious metals" more, scrap iron, a friend brought out a tank and threw it in my iron pile. He said he found it in the ditch near home, and recently a dentist office had been robbed and we figger the thieves sucked up the laughing gas and threw it in the ditch. I was mad as hell because I thought there was serial numbers on these tanks, and bitched at him until he came and took it away, probably to a different ditch ! I now know there are not serial numbers, only manufacturer dates and codes etc. so I should have kept it !

 

I have a set, works great for heating and cutting but struggle getting the right tip to braze, but that's fine I have a Tig and mig.

 

Hey guys. Sorry it took a few days to get back on here. Work, family, etc. you know the story. Anyways. I’ve looked at & called about a couple of setups on offer up & I’ve also called air gas and spoke to their sales guy. Seems like if I buy old bottles they need to be certified before they will fill them. Like $50 a bottle for cert. then another $40 per bottle to fill. Apparently the bottles need to say DOT on them so if you buy a used harbor freight set up on offer up the bottles are not DOT & air gas won’t fill. Maybe other shops will. I’m a little confused on how it all works. I’m going to try calling sunbelt rentals to see if they rent torches as suggested by someone. Also I was contacted by a member that said he’d help me out, but he’s not super close & dont really want to put him out if I don’t have to. I’ll check back once I figure this all out. Thanks for all the responses, great ideas & information.

 

Being that you're from California, I guess anything is possible. Are you sure you didn't talk to a propane salesperson. Propane tanks have a DOT stamp on them and they can't be filled once that date is reached.
If you have a large propane tank outside of your house, it does not have a DOT stamp on it (100 gallons-500 gallons). If you're new to the supplier, he will not fill your tank without an inspection of the tank and your propane lines.
How could this guy on the phone quote you a price without knowing what size bottles you have or what gas you need.
I've been exchanging tanks in Washington, Oregon, and Nevada for 50 years and the proceedure is alloways the same.
You pull up to the staging area that has a sign that says empty bottles and you offload your bottles next to your rig. Go into the office and tell the guy you need gas ( what kind ) and he will look out the door or window to see the size of the bottle and write up a bill for the gas. While in the office, a yard guy will have gotten your filled exchange bottles and they will be setting next to your rig and the old bottles will be gone. Smaller shops,the one guy does it all.
They will not offload empty bottles or load full bottles for you. If you wear high heels and have a high pitched voice, better have help with you to load and offload the bottles. Thy can be quite heavy.
NEVER LAY A ACETYLENE BOTTLE ON IT'S SIDE.

https://welditmyself.com/gas-cylinder-date-stamp/

 

I gotta agree with 46 caddy, they are giving you bull shit. There is a sticker on the top of the bottles, and when you bring in to exchange thats what they look at. I just looked at 3 bottles near me now, and its a code that I can't say what it means, but thats what they look at to see if the tank is out dated and in need of inspection. There is also a bar code on the sticker, but I have never seen them scan that, they just look at the numbers, which do not make sense to me, Its a secret code !!. When I brought in old tanks for the first time, they say without that sticker it for sure needs to go thru testing. as I said before, its 5 years on combustable gas, and 10 years on non flammable. I believe that is nation wide, and one of my dealers is Aire Gas, which is world wide. Call some other dealers.

 

The company I was a sub-dealer for started using the bar codes on the cylinders a couple years ago. The company truck driver used the scan code whenever he swapped out the cylinders. It took about a year to swap out most of the cylinders at my location over to all cylinders with the bar codes. I believe it was more for their tracking then anything, probably government related, so the government knew where the cylinder was last delivered if something happened. They did not provide me with a scan tool.

From the way I watched the system run from my location, I also don't buy into the concept of the DOT number. Any new cylinder I've seen here has always came through a dealer of some kind already filled, you paid for the cylinder and the gas the first time, then exchanged it afterwards. There is a HF store here in town, I heard all the cylinders they sold were sent to the same gas supplier, and it wasn't me.

 

Company I dealt with in Ky sold me large tanks a long time ago. They were the biggest local company but still operated in a customer friendly manner. Dealt with them for about 25 years. Just take my tank in and they would exchange it each time. Then they bought out another local company and collars began having different names when exchanged.
Then they sold out to another company which had their own bottles but continued to use the two or three brands from the original company.
Then they sold out to yet another company............

So the latest company "archived" all the old records. After about 25/30 years I didn't have my original receipts. Luckily I had some tanks filled during the transition period and they had me in the computer. The computer had a code "C" on my record and I later found out that meant "Customer Owned".
They let me take a picture of the computer screen showing I owned several bottles.
They no longer exchanged them and I had to make 2 trips to take/retrieve my bottles.

A newer company opened up just a couple miles from me. I talked to them and it turned out that the guy I was dealing with had worked for the company I used to deal with. He recognized the computer screen pictures and he was the one who told me the "C" stood for customer owned. All went well for several years and I got all my tanks recertified and refilled there. I have about 10 tanks, some large some medium sized. So I spent a fair amount of money there.

Then one day they put a new manager in charge and he basically had a "F*** the customer" attitude and said they would no longer refill any large customer owned bottle.........PERIOD. That company is Holston.

"We are proud of where we have come from, proud of where we are, and excited and optimistic about where we are going. And we would be proud to earn your business, build a relationship, and keep you as a valued, long term customer."

Just another corporate Bullsh** company. Their exact words were"its too much trouble to refill privately owned bottles on our assembly line" (I repainted my bottles and even have my name stenciled on them so they are easy to keep separate) customer friendly my ass !
People might want to look elsewhere when buying stuff. Smaller companies are usually friendlier.

 

I just bought a small argon tank for a new tig setup. As part of the tank search, I called the closest Airgas location here in Tucson.
He told me that they could fill most tanks as long as they had the DOT sticker (or maybe stamp). Some imported tanks without the DOT stamp are floating around, though.

There would be a revert charge if the tank was out of date.

In the end, it was cheaper to buy a small tank from Cyberweld, and have it refilled as required at AirGas than it was to buy or rent from Airgas, although, for a one time, or infrequent use, they have short term rentals. I think it came to less than $2.00/ day for a months rent.

Suprisingly, my Cyberweld tank, filled with Argon, was on my doorstep by noon the day after I ordered it online.

 

That's the way it's always worked for me, in CA. But then, my first exchange was with brand new bottles, maybe that was the difference?

 

Can anyone post a pic of a tank with a collar on it?

Also, all my tanks have a DOT number stamped on them. I’ve never been asked about it though, maybe they just look at it when I exchange them.

Edit: I recall my instructor of the class I took at the JC said that an acetylene tank has to sit upright for 24 hours after it was laid down, regardless of how long it was laid down for to let the liquid drain/drip out of the diffuser? thing.

 

Her's two. The green is Airgas, world wide, the brown is Gopher Gas, never heard of em, must be an old tank. Note the bar code sticker on the brown tank. On the green tank, note the big sticker with numbers on the left side. This is what they look at for date of certification, but its not a normal thing like 12/11/22, its a secret code !

 

I see. I was thinking something different. Thanks.

 

You can always tell the tanks from Gopher Gas. They smell like molasses.

(sorry.... couldn't help it. Read the molasses joke here on the HAMB a few weeks back and still giggling).

Cheers,
Harv

 

Had the same problem with Holston when I moved to the Chattanooga area. Couldn't deal with them on anything. Found a small outfit who bent over backwards to work with me. Still with them 14 years later.

 

It's late, I'm tired and I can't believe no one has called BS on this. Green tank, big sticker with numbers on the left side. Date of certification, it's a secret code! WTF are you going on about? That's no secret code, that's the Hazardous Materials number assigned to
UN1072 is used for domestic shipping of Hazard Class 2.2 - Oxygen, Compressed or Oxygen, Refrigerated Liquid (see 49 CFR 172.530). Due to limited supply, tagboard placards are not readily available. However, removable vinyl is an alternative material with similar or greater durability.
UN1072 - Oxygen Worded Placards from Labelmaster

www.labelmaster.com/shop/placards/hazard-class-2-placards/oxygen-worded-placards/

 

Well, pardon my ignorance, and thanks for the facts . But...I still say thats what they look at when exchanging bottles. Its puzzled me for a while now because I can not find any other dates on the bottles except for the manufacturer stamps which are often 30 - 50 years old. Also, I have never seen anyone scan the bar code. So...how do they know its age ?

 

@rusty valley, I'll tell you the truth. I don't know how they tell its age. Two things I can tell you are: (1) Keep your original sales receipt. Seal it up in something airtight, keep it out of the sun so it doesn't fade and if there's a question about whose tanks they are, carry that receipt into the store with you and show them. That leads us to (2). Do not pick the tank up using both hands on the cap. Make absolutely sure that the cap is screwed on the tank correctly and not cross threaded. Sometimes those caps, and especially the ones with mis-matched colors, don't fit the bottles they are on. The result could well be the immediate enlargement and dis-coloration of your top and bottom lips and nose and in some cases, the removal of some of your front teeth. Not that I have ever done anything that stupid, you understand.

 

See 7 and 8 for date stamp info.

 

For the OP, I didn't have a torch set for my entire life of working on cars. I struggled through things with a map gas torch. I bought a kit and bottles for my model A build. Dang it!!! I should have bought one 20 years ago. Its so much more valuable then just a torch. The other day I brazed my mill handle back together after it had broke. Saved me 50 bucks! Do yourself a favor and pick up a new torch set up, buy your bottles, you wont regret it!

 

The thing you want to look for as far as being in certification is a stamped into the bottle date followed by a + and a star. The stamped date tells when it was certified and the star means its good for 10 years from that date. Most of the other stuff isn't useful to us, just to the Gas supplier. Just look for the date and the star.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ide...#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:2ac48b87,vid:KX9dnaoeAKo

 

For worry of leaving tank on argon/hel as the last fill was $324.00. For mig and tig I use spray paint large caps which just fit over the tank valve knobs. When I turn the welders on I take the Paint cap off of the valve and hang it on the welder on switch [you have to be creative to get the cap to stay on the switch] then open tank. Of course you have to remove cap to shut welder off so you shut off tank and put the cap back on the knob and shut off welder.

 

• search Offer Up, local estate & garage sales. You're hoping to find someone moving long distance and not wanting to transport heavy stuff such as an O/A setup. You should be able to bargain a quick sale fairly well with Christmas on the horizon.
• Find a local weldor that does side work at his home shop. Have pics of before/after to show what needs to be done when asking for a bid.