Old steels denied fills due to store "policy"

[Manatee Diver]

I was going to suggest Fill Express-I didn't know they closed. Have they moved or totally closed down? I remember when Fill Express was owned by Dive Gear Express (Dive Rite Express at the time IIRC.) DGX is also in your neck of the woods and worth considering but you have to be careful or you're liable to see a few items you "need" while waiting. Which brings us back to the silly policy of the shop who lost ALL of your business.

DGX doesn't do fills for the public. Also they are entirely a warehouse now, you can ask to see specific items, but all ordering must be through their website (they have a computer there for ordering).

 

[Bob DBF]

Whenever I get a tank jockey thinking one if my 72’s is an aluminum 80 and starts sending it up to 3000 psi, I keep mouth shut...
Perfect!

I don't mind an overfill, but he was headed for 3500 or so to cool to 3445, that's just a bit past my comfort threshold. The overriding factor was he had no idea what he was dealing with, and that is when accidents happen.


Bob

 

[2airishuman]

I'm not giving any advise.

I'm simply asking how many years or pressure cycles is a reasonable life expectancy for a scuba tank?

For 3AA steel cylinders, there is no practical limit as long as the cylinder passes hydro.

The industrial gas industry has been using 3A and 3AA cylinders for over a hundred years. Many cylinders are in more frequent use than SCUBA cylinders. The industry does not have a safety problem. I have not been able to find a single example of a 3A or 3AA cylinder that was in hydro that ruptured during normal use except for a handful of badly corroded SCUBA cylinders before VIPs were common. None. In 100 years. Over hundreds of times more cylinders than all the SCUBA diving cylinders that have ever been made.

If you can find an example, post up.

There are many steel cylinders that have ruptured during hydro and many hydro shops keep a display. There are valve failures including valves that came off the neck threads at speed. There are aluminum cylinders that have ruptured for various reasons, among them the bad alloy, and heat damage. There are cylinders (most if not all aluminum) that ruptured due to fires or reactions involving their contents.

How about this . If you are so confident that your 48 year old tanks are safe then you must be willing to bare hug the tank well the " untrained tank monkey " fills it?

I fill my 50+ year old tanks myself in my garage. I don't hug them while I'm doing it, because I don't want to get hit in the face by pieces of an exploding fill whip or lose an eardrum to a popping burst disc, and those are very real risks.

 

[RayfromTX]

And I was the staff member who helped Ana. I helped her ask the manager about policy at Force E, and I helped her find Tony and the staff at PDC.

I have no issue with Force E's fill station, Force E's rules. None whatsoever. I have an issue with someone coming on the interwebs and telling me a 40 year old steel tank is junk or rotten, and I should hold it between my knees while filling.

To be perfectly clear, if I'm filling it, it's because I gave it a quick once over, looked at the hydro and VIP sticker, and have no issue with it between my knees, because the result is the same if it's between my knees or 10 feet away. If it lets go, I'm not safe at any distance that I could possibly be in charge of fills.

I have written fill station procedures and perform training for my fill station operators, just like PSI taught me and DOT and CGA require. In those procedures are a set of standards for all fill station operators to follow. Because it's the law. So the comment earlier that "not everyone has procedures" is BS, at least in the USA. I understand Fullytec isn't in the USA. So no, it isn't that the rules have to be posted online, but somewhere Force E has a set of standards for filling cylinders that they should be able to pass along to Ana without too much hassle.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. She has a new shop with a friend of mine. She is happy, and she gets her fills. Force E has met the intent of their procedure, and good on them. They repeated the same limit to me offline, BTW, they don't fill steels made before 1980. And the only reason it got personal was because one member kept insisting that he was right because his gut told him so. Which is fine also, but science trumps gut every time. Gut is why we have anti-vaxxers and flat earthers.

Best post of 2019 nomination

 

[Billy Northrup]

Clearly those tanks were rendered garbage from filling in a water bath!

 

[The Chairman]

Gut is why we have anti-vaxxers and flat earthers.

Overeating is why I have gut!

 

[Wookie]

Overeating is why I have gut!

+1

 

[kelemvor]

Wow! To think, I recently recommended Force-E to someone. If they're hiring tank fill guys of this caliber, clearly they've gone downhill recently.

It's a shame.

Gut is why we have anti-vaxxers and flat earthers.

OK, you've piqued my curiosity. I've heard of "flat earthers" before, but what is an anti-vaxxer? Personally, I like flat earthers. Any time you're in a bad mood, just look up a youtube video posted by one of those nutjobs. It's sure to put a grin on your face. Jerry Seinfeld couldn't have come up with a better comedy routine.

 

[Wookie]

Wow! To think, I recently recommended Force-E to someone. If they're hiring tank fill guys of this caliber, clearly they've gone downhill recently.

It's a shame.


OK, you've piqued my curiosity. I've heard of "flat earthers" before, but what is an anti-vaxxer? Personally, I like flat earthers. Any time you're in a bad mood, just look up a youtube video posted by one of those nutjobs. It's sure to put a grin on your face. Jerry Seinfeld couldn't have come up with a better comedy routine.

More a post for the pub, but anti-vaxxer’s are folks whose gut tells them that it is better to not vaccinate your children, mostly because of a debunked study from some doc In Australia who claimed that mercury found in vaccines causes autism in children.

 

[The Chairman]

but anti-vaxxer’s are folks whose gut tells them that it is better to not vaccinate your children,

Dick Rutkowski, one of the early proponents of NitrOx, had a saying for when people relied on their feels: "Science over Bullsh1t! People exhibit a lot of irrational fear over math, orienteering (using a compass) and science. You don't have to fully understand to accept it. Few understand electricity, but they still use light switches. It's the same with science oriented services like hydrostatic cylinder testing. If it passes that test, it's safe to pressurize within reason. No feels or gut needed. It's science!

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