4 hydros; NO refill...
- Thread starter TheQuintessentialMan
- Start date
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I got mine from one of the members of the VDH forum way back. Here is a source, a friend, that may still have some:
James
I knew of that place when I lived in Phoenix and I think I just bought a Scubapro repair kit from them. Florida can be as bad as California in thinking each is the center of the SCUBA world.
James
First of all why are you shipping DOT cylinders to Spain then shipping them back?
Second that hydro shop in Spain did a big no-no. You didnt bring them an EU cylinder, they can test is sure. They cannot requalify it in Spain and their hydro stamp is invalid here too. At least one/some FL shops figured out that you didnt have a properly qualified cylinder. No wonder they have to institute arbitrary rules
The tank wasn't shipped to Spain. It was on board a yacht that was visiting Spain when the old hydro ran out, so a local shop over there inspected it. I don't know the rules in Spain, so I don't know if that was legal or not. It very well may not have been.
I agree that the test marks from Spain are technically not valid in the US, even if the tests themselves are basically equivalent. Perhaps my previous post did not make that clear enough.
The years for the bad tanks are listed in another thread here on scubaboard - Is my cylinder made from the "bad" alloy aka AL6351?
Here is the summary for scuba cylinders:
All Walter Kidde DOT-3AL cylinders, of which production ceased in
January 1990, are made of alloy 6351-T6. Cliff Impact DOT-3AL cylinders
were made from alloy 6351-T6 before July 1990, at which time Cliff
Impact changed to alloy 6061-T6. Catalina Cylinders did not produce any
DOT-3AL cylinders from alloy 6351-T6; therefore, cylinders manufactured
by Catalina are not subject to this notice.
Until determined otherwise, any DOT-3AL or DOT-E 7235 cylinder
should be assumed to be made of alloy 6351-T6, if it was:
1. Manufactured by Luxfer USA before the applicable date listed in
the chart below;
2. Manufactured by Cliff-Impact before July 1990;
3. Manufactured by any other company in the United States,
excluding Catalina, before February 1990; or
4. Manufactured outside the United States.
Now lets focus on cylinders made by Luxfer as they are the most predominate scuba cylinder made with AL6351:
30 and 63 cu. ft............................. S30, S63 .... mfg date 5-88
40 cu. ft....................................... S40 ........... mfg date 6-88
50 and 92 cu. ft............................. S50, S92 .... mfg date 4-88
72 and 100 cu. ft........................... S72, S100 ... mfg date 8-87
80 cu. ft....................................... S80 ........... mfg date 1-88
80.8 cu. ft.................................... S80.8 ......... mfg date 5-87
Here is the summary for scuba cylinders:
All Walter Kidde DOT-3AL cylinders, of which production ceased in
January 1990, are made of alloy 6351-T6. Cliff Impact DOT-3AL cylinders
were made from alloy 6351-T6 before July 1990, at which time Cliff
Impact changed to alloy 6061-T6. Catalina Cylinders did not produce any
DOT-3AL cylinders from alloy 6351-T6; therefore, cylinders manufactured
by Catalina are not subject to this notice.
Until determined otherwise, any DOT-3AL or DOT-E 7235 cylinder
should be assumed to be made of alloy 6351-T6, if it was:
1. Manufactured by Luxfer USA before the applicable date listed in
the chart below;
2. Manufactured by Cliff-Impact before July 1990;
3. Manufactured by any other company in the United States,
excluding Catalina, before February 1990; or
4. Manufactured outside the United States.
Now lets focus on cylinders made by Luxfer as they are the most predominate scuba cylinder made with AL6351:
30 and 63 cu. ft............................. S30, S63 .... mfg date 5-88
40 cu. ft....................................... S40 ........... mfg date 6-88
50 and 92 cu. ft............................. S50, S92 .... mfg date 4-88
72 and 100 cu. ft........................... S72, S100 ... mfg date 8-87
80 cu. ft....................................... S80 ........... mfg date 1-88
80.8 cu. ft.................................... S80.8 ......... mfg date 5-87
SubseaSports
Contributor
This is what I was talking about. Some of these guys must have stacks of them lol. There are a couple of versions out there.
Saguaro used to be my shop when I lived in Mesa. At that time air fills were free, just tip the filler. Always got short filled though in spite of a fair tip.
Yes there is a lot of info and resources out there for shops to get 'educated', but I don't see it changing. I am talking about my AO, Florida. I have even seen a shop drill a hole in an aluminum tank so it couldn't ever be filled.
If you dive here and have tanks, you know. I got rid of my AL tanks as they were getting old and knew of the pending difficulty of getting them filled, bar a bailout, once I moved back here years ago.
J-Vo
Contributor
@boulderjohn may correct me, but I believe we know of a person that got "fail" stamped on a new set of Faber steal tanks because the inspector didn't know what they were doing.
I am not remembering that, but we do have an acquaintance who purchased used Worthington steel tanks that were made unusable by the shop when they failed hydro because the shop did not know that you have to use special procedures when doing a hydro on Worthington tanks. Most of my steel tanks are Worthingtons, and you can bet I make sure I use a knowledgeable shop when taking them in for hydro.
I used the word "shop" above, and I should clarify. Most of the people here are talking about taking their tanks to a scuba shop for hydro. In most cases, that shop does nothing more than collect a fee for taking the tanks to a specialty operation that does hydros and other tank services for a variety of customers. If your tanks need hydro, you can go directly to the hydro shop yourself and save the middleman markup. Some of the tanks I own need hydro during my winters in Florida, and when they do, I go directly to such a specialty shop. Back home in Colorado, I use a dive shop that does its own hydros in house.
The dive shop where I get my fills here in Colorado, like many others, has its own custom VIP stickers. The employee who does the inspections and affixes the stickers is certified to do so, and he has to pay a hefty fee every couple of years to maintain that certification. It is totally legitimate.
I mentioned earlier that here in Colorado I have another shop do the hydros. I have 3 tanks in there right now, and when they are done with the hydros, they will O2 clean the tanks and fill them. They, too, will then affix their custom stickers to the tanks, and those stickers will be perfectly legitimate.
There is no legal requirement that someone doing a VIP be qualified in any way to do it. There is nothing to prevent a dive shop's tank inspector to say "screw it" to the recertification fee every few years and just keep certifying the tanks after the certification has expired. There is nothing to prevent that dive shop from providing its own training to a minimum wage employee. There is nothing to prevent a shop from using a minimum wage employee with no training whatsoever. That is apparently what happened in a famous case of an oxygen-filled AL 40 in Florida a few years ago--the employee who oxygen cleaned and filled the tank had no training whatsoever, and his cleaning/filing process included using a healthy swab of silicone grease on the threads.
So when someone walks in with a VIP sticker you don't recognize, how do you know it is legitimate?
I mentioned earlier that here in Colorado I have another shop do the hydros. I have 3 tanks in there right now, and when they are done with the hydros, they will O2 clean the tanks and fill them. They, too, will then affix their custom stickers to the tanks, and those stickers will be perfectly legitimate.
There is no legal requirement that someone doing a VIP be qualified in any way to do it. There is nothing to prevent a dive shop's tank inspector to say "screw it" to the recertification fee every few years and just keep certifying the tanks after the certification has expired. There is nothing to prevent that dive shop from providing its own training to a minimum wage employee. There is nothing to prevent a shop from using a minimum wage employee with no training whatsoever. That is apparently what happened in a famous case of an oxygen-filled AL 40 in Florida a few years ago--the employee who oxygen cleaned and filled the tank had no training whatsoever, and his cleaning/filing process included using a healthy swab of silicone grease on the threads.
So when someone walks in with a VIP sticker you don't recognize, how do you know it is legitimate?
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