Rust inside 72s

[aquaregia]

I just got some old 72s. I opened one of them up and there's a bit of rust inside. Most of it's just some spots on the sides, but there's a big ring of it around the bottom. Is this likely to be fixable? Do they deal with rust before the hydro or after? Basically, if I take these in for inspection, am I looking at a ton of money just to get a hole drilled in the side?

 

[Bubbletrubble]

Rust inside the tank is normally dealt with by tumbling. This service costs $20-$25 per tank in my local area.

Do the tumbling first...and then get the tank hydro'd + VIPed.

Good luck...

 

[Gilldiver]

Light rust spots don't need to be toumbled, a whip works just as well and is much faster.

 

[duckbill]

A ring at the bottom is not good.

 

[rjack321]

A ring at the bottom is not good.

exactly, line corrosion of much depth at all (0.03" IIRC?) and they are wind chimes.

 

[halocline]

Get it tumbled, then see what's up. $25 is an expensive tumble, it should be more like $10-15. Or, if there's an inspector that really knows about these tanks, you can ask him/her if it's worth it. Around here the tank inspector most dive shops use is seriously misinformed about tumbling tanks.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

$25 is an expensive tumble, it should be more like $10-15.

Yeah, the price I quoted was the price charged by a couple of local dive shops. They send out the tanks to be tumbled by another company (30 min. drive away). Undoubtedly, money can be saved by cutting out the middle man...but it's sooooooo convenient.

 

[aquaregia]

My LDS wants $25 from me. The hydro place was quite a long way from me, so I imagine the tumbling place would be too.

 

[Ed Palma]

Just a note. I had my 72s hydroed recently. I bought them and I saw what I thought was a rust ring on the bottom. It was linear, about an inch from the bottom. I thought it my tanks were dead because the linear rust was more than 6 inches. But it didn't quite compute in my head as to how a ring could form an inch from the bottom, with a relatively clean base. As it turns out, it was remnants of the liner that was once inside it. I tried a bottom brush and it removed most of the remaining liner, leaving a clean tank.

Both tanks passed hydro.