purchase of rental tanks

[osb]

Hi all,
I have a few questions for the crowd:

I just purchased two tanks from my LDS' rental fleet (they are closing thier location in my town).

They are Luxfer AL80's, Mfgd in 94, Hydro'd in 99, both have had recent VIP (90 days).

Their condition looks good( that's why i bought them) but they do have lots of scratches, and a few old stickers (besides the VIP) that are faded and or scratched off in places.

1) They were $75 each. Seemed reasonable to me... is it ?

2) I'm kind of a clean freak -- What if anything is acceptable to do to the exterior of these tanks ? Is there anything special I need to know before i give them a good cleaning. Can they scrubbed with abrasive material like steel wool, or a scouring pad. Can they be painted ?


Any help is appreciated,

OSB

 

[Scottri]

I think $75 is a fair price if they are still in hydro and VIP. As far as cleaning them, as long as you don't take the valve off scrubbing them with an abrassive won't be a problem. I would not use any chemical other than a houshold cleaner or cleanser. You can even repaint them as long as you don't expose them to extreme heat. I would use a mild detergent and a scotch brite pad to scrub them and then rinse them.

As far as painting, I have painted steel tanks by stripping them with a paint stripper but I'm not sure how it would react with Aluminum. I would check with the tank manufacturer. As far as paint goes, I used a waterproof primer and just rattle canned them with Krylon. Worked great and it's held up for about a year.


Good luck,
Scott