Neutral 80 as Stage Bottle?

[DA Aquamaster]

Couple things -

Catalina tanks never used the bad alloy - not sure why you can't get them filled if they pass hydro.

You are correct - Catalina never used 6351-T6 alloy and they are not suceptible to sustained load cracking.

But the average dive shop fill monkey does not know that and many shops just have blanket policies preventing aluminum tanks made prior to mid 1988 from being filled. Some refuse to fill anything older than 1990 and others put an arbitrary life span on all aluminum tanks. Some even get nervous filling steel 72's since they are also by default "old", ignoring the fact that steel tanks are not subject to fatigue issues and that a well cared for 3AA steel tank will last about a 100 years.

 

[Bismark]

When we first tried them (didn't know they were s80n's) they felt pretty heavy from the left chest d-ring and hip ring, but I just figured I was imaging things. Then when they started to get closer to empty, they still hung down and literlly swung back and forth as you moved. We were doing a lot of fairly basic penetration with the stage on (bigger openings) and we had to start lifting them up and out of the way when we would swim through a door way or anything. They just swung there like anchors. We had planned to send them up on a line we dropped over the side of the boat so we didn't have to worry about them when we were doing 50% and 02 deco........you can imagine how that worked.....three stages hanging on the bottom of a 30 ft line bouncing up and down with the swell...and clanging......... Made for a long deco..... We looked through all the cylinders in the dive shop (Blue Lagoon) and finally managed to round up 9 s80's to use for stages. We couldn't find enough to replace our stupidly heavy doubles though. We had to do 2 dives with the heavier stages (Helium was $4.50 a cu ft......) I have HD footage of us swimming along with these stupid boat anchors hanging from our left sides......I am used to to them tucked out of the way (like a good stage should ) so this was a pretty crappy set up. Like I said, we did fix it but the memories remain........... I honestly can't imagine having a steel stage........ even by rolling to the right to get more gas in that side of the wing, you could still feel the asymetrical pull.

 

[Jason B]

When we first tried them (didn't know they were s80n's) they felt pretty heavy from the left chest d-ring and hip ring, but I just figured I was imaging things. Then when they started to get closer to empty, they still hung down and literlly swung back and forth as you moved. We were doing a lot of fairly basic penetration with the stage on (bigger openings) and we had to start lifting them up and out of the way when we would swim through a door way or anything. They just swung there like anchors. We had planned to send them up on a line we dropped over the side of the boat so we didn't have to worry about them when we were doing 50% and 02 deco........you can imagine how that worked.....three stages hanging on the bottom of a 30 ft line bouncing up and down with the swell...and clanging......... Made for a long deco..... We looked through all the cylinders in the dive shop (Blue Lagoon) and finally managed to round up 9 s80's to use for stages. We couldn't find enough to replace our stupidly heavy doubles though. We had to do 2 dives with the heavier stages (Helium was $4.50 a cu ft......) I have HD footage of us swimming along with these stupid boat anchors hanging from our left sides......I am used to to them tucked out of the way (like a good stage should ) so this was a pretty crappy set up. Like I said, we did fix it but the memories remain........... I honestly can't imagine having a steel stage........ even by rolling to the right to get more gas in that side of the wing, you could still feel the asymetrical pull.

If this was a response to Jeff G - I think he was joking with you. It was quite clear you were trying to say they suck.

 

[Bismark]

No problem. Heh Jeff...............they really sucked..........

 

[JeffG]

Not everyone gets my posts the first time.

 

[giles45shop]

All,

Thanks for the inputs! Sounds like I need to trade it for a Luxfer regular 80. I'm guessing there's nobody in this forum that would want one? Whatcha say Bismark

John

 

[Bismark]

Cut in in half and use half for a plant pot and the other half for a door stop............