Hi Bob, thanks for answering the questions.
Why I asked such detailed questions: The mixing class offered by most shops is a complete rip-off; your shop appears to be one of the refreshing exceptions.
Most shops offer a mixing class and then refuse to top off the cylinders of students that have taken the class, which begs the question: Why offer the class in the first place? It’s not a problem if the student is simply a badge collector, but to offer someone that’s genuinely interested in mixing a mixing class, then not allow them to mix is borderline dishonest at best. If you’re not going to top off for them, they might as well go out and buy “The Oxygen Hackers Companion” and learn on their own, since the class isn’t going to give them any special access and they’ll have to buy their own compressor to mix anyway…
As for building a relationship with them and charging them for the top-off, I have no problem with either. If I owned a shop I’d only let non-employees near my equipment
during the course of a class. Note this implies that, in my opinion, you shouldn’t let students use the O2 cascade after graduation either – so that
is something that they’ll have to go out an invest in (if a couple students go in together, they can reduce the cost).
Two suggestions, point your students to “The Oxygen Hacker’s Companion” (
http://www.airspeedpress.com/) for further reading, and if someone is actually interested in building an O2 cascade, I would recommend Linweld in Denver for Western Enterprises high-pressure fittings and gas. Linweld will “sell” you a T cylinder for about $230, and you don’t have to pay any monthly fee. You trade cylinders in to fill them, and when you want to get out of it, they buy them back for what you paid for them.
I’ve had a couple Ts of He in my garage for a couple years now, and I’m not sweating a monthly fee.
Roak
