How come there's no stainless steel tank?

[rcontrera]

If memory serves me the company was Justus Cylinder in Kansas and was going to be sold by DACOR. To the best of my knowledge they never produced a cylinder due to technical difficulties. If someone knows differently please update me.

JUSTUS!! That's the one! I was actually going to invest in that one!!

As I remember, they purchased Cylinder Technologies Inc in some scheme with city bond money. Some bad decisions business wise compounded by technical difficulties and the run in with the union finally put them down. Happened real quick too! I think this was all in about the span of a year and a half in 1981-1983 or there abouts.

 

[muddiver]

I also would think that with stainless steel having a lot less trength than mild steel the tanks would be pretty heavy. Just like aluminum tanks are lighter than steel but the wall thickness is thicker, bringing them is line weight wise to steel tanks.

 

[james croft]

I know a diver who is about 80 years old. He dives old DIY gear. One of his tanks is SS. It is one he converted to use for scuba. It was a military surplus tank of some kind. He fills it on his own surplus compressor. I may try to swap him for one of my "modern" tanks.

 

[Leadking]

I also would think that with stainless steel having a lot less trength than mild steel the tanks would be pretty heavy. Just like aluminum tanks are lighter than steel but the wall thickness is thicker, bringing them is line weight wise to steel tanks.

Actually stainless is about 3X harder than mild steel. It is the heat treat process that takes steel to a high tensile. I am not aware of how heat treat processes in stainless behaves but have heard that the process is uneven and unpredictable for cylinders.

 

[mike the brit]

I think its more a case of strength and manufacture issues making them expensive to fabricate. See comments by 'tep' above.

regards

Mike

 

[underwasser bolt]

A stainless steel rifle barrel is not too brittle and must undergo 70,000 psi time after time. I know the walls are proportionally very thick, but scuba applications don't need to go to 70,000 psi either. From what i understand it took years for the metallurgy to develop to the point where high pressure stainless steel rifle barrels could be made, hence they have not been around in mass production for too many years. I think the technology is there; expense may be out of sight. Then again, a cheap stainless rifle barrel capable of extreme pressure costs maybe $100 and there is a lot of precision machining in a barrel not needed in a scuba cylinder.