visual inspection on tanks

[Luis H]

Here, I'll cover lined steel tanks:

"If your steel 72 has a liner, tumble it for a week to try and get the liner out. If it doesn't come out, toss the tank because it isn't worth that kind of trouble."


Next?

Well, that is wrong. There is nothing wrong with lined tanks. They make inspection a tad more difficult, but not imposible.

I have posted the page from the PSI /PCI Cylinder Inspection book that talk about it.

Some of the interior coatings make it difficult to inspect for rust, but there are plenty of thin coats that don’t need to be disturbed if they are firmly attached. As a mater of fact if you tumble for a while and the coating doesn’t come of, that is normally good proof that coating is well adhered to base metal and there is no rust behind it.

I personally own four lined steel 72 that are in great shape. Three of them have the white lining that is extremely easy to inspect. Any rust shows up easier than on a regular tank.

 

[gndpdr]

if there is no laws on vip's how is one going to be charged with false documents? if i make a sticker that say's i looked in it and found it to be serviceable and date it where is the false document? can you provide a set of official documents ?

 

[Davidstealey3]

ok sorry, did get my facts wrong, but bill high did form PSI to train people in the proper or methods for visual cylinder inspections,which is the quality standard for profesional dealing with high pressure cylinders throught the world ( courtsey of the back of the inspecting cylinders book ), and is one of only two agencies recognized by the CGA to do inspections

hope these facts are good enough for you and everybody else

 

[JBRES1]

Food for thought.
Does the untrained guy know what to look for when inspecting a tank for defects ?

The guy filling a cylinder is the guy that is going to get hurt if the Shi* hits the fan, not you or the guy that inspected the tank.
Tank inspection isn't rocket science, its a class that teaches you what to look for when inspecting cylinders so that filling the tank can be done safely.
I took the class so that I could inspect my own cylinders. Because in my case I am the guy that inspects, fills and uses them.

Jim breslin

 

[Davidstealey3]

Food for thought.
Does the untrained guy know what to look for when inspecting a tank for defects ?

The guy filling a cylinder is the guy that is going to get hurt if the Shi* hits the fan, not you or the guy that inspected the tank.
Tank inspection isn't rocket science, its a class that teaches you what to look for when inspecting cylinders so that filling the tank can be done safely.
I took the class so that I could inspect my own cylinders. Because in my case I am the guy that inspects, fills and uses them.

Jim breslin

like i said in a different post, THIS IS LIFE SUPPORT EQUIPMENT. do you trust the job that you do and would you bet your life or the life of a loved one on it?

 

[captain]

like i said in a different post, THIS IS LIFE SUPPORT EQUIPMENT. do you trust the job that you do and would you bet your life or the life of a loved one on it?

I trust myself more than anyone else and I have been inspecting my own tanks for 45+ years and still have the tanks I was inspecting 45 years ago so I must be doing something right.
I don't ever deal with dive shops. I inspect them, clean them, tumble or whip them, rebuild the valves and send them to the local industrial hydro shop when needed.

 

[Davidstealey3]

you have been doing it for a long time and you do your own, but would you trust someone who didnt know what they were doing? and would you want to fill that tank and dive it? and i do agree with you capitan, i trust what i do more than anyone else. but i would have a hard time trusting someone with no clue as to what to look for or how to inspect the tank

just general questions?
just want people to stop and think for a minute before doing something.
again, this is kind of getting off topic but not as bad as the last thread, so to get back to the actual question, do you think it is ok to inspecft and maintain your tanks with no formal training?

 

[captain]

you have been doing it for a long time and you do your own, but would you trust someone who didnt know what they were doing? and would you want to fill that tank and dive it? and i do agree with you capitan, i trust what i do more than anyone else. but i would have a hard time trusting someone with no clue as to what to look for or how to inspect the tank

just general questions?
just want people to stop and think for a minute before doing something.
again, this is kind of getting off topic but not as bad as the last thread, so to get back to the actual question, do you think it is ok to inspecft and maintain your tanks with no formal training?

Here is the issue. There is a difference between someone who doesn't know what he is doing, someone who has been trained by whatever organization and someone who has learned on his own.
I am not a formally trained machinist but I have taught myself to do machine work, I am not a formally trained mechanic but I have learned how to build racing engines. I also taught myself to dive, how to operate and rebuild a compressor, rebuild regulators including modifying them and making parts for them and valves.
Everyone has to start somewhere, and some chose to start on their own. To say someone needs to be trained by someone else is the only way to learn a task is false.
Resources are available for someone to learn on his/her own and learn just as well or better than someone who is taught.
So yes it is OK for someone with no "formal training" to inspect tanks and do a lot of other things if he has put in the effort to learn how on his own.
I am 65 years old and still learning how to do things on my own.

 

[halocline]

ok sorry, did get my facts wrong, but bill high did form PSI to train people in the proper or methods for visual cylinder inspections,which is the quality standard for profesional dealing with high pressure cylinders throught the world ( courtsey of the back of the inspecting cylinders book ), and is one of only two agencies recognized by the CGA to do inspections

hope these facts are good enough for you and everybody else

PSI is a profit making company that trains interested people in inspecting cylinders, that's it. Nothing wrong with that, I'd like to take one of their courses someday, but please get off the BS about "quality professional standards" and "certified techs."

The "certified tech" at my LDS started the VIP on one of my LP72s by trying to take the valve off with the tank still pressurized. (I suggested he drain the tank first) Then he looked inside, said "looks okay to me, have a look" and took my $20 for the sticker and fill.

The theory of regulating scuba cylinders for safety's sake is a good one, but it gets pretty beat up by the routine ignorance and arrogance at so many dive shops. Please stop defending it.

 

[oxyhacker]

Does the trained guy? I took an inspection course once, a lot of the participants were mistaking tool marks for SLC and never got corrected. And most of us have heard enough crazy stuff from trained inspectors to suspect that a certificate from a tank inspection agency does necessarily make someone competent to inspect tanks.

Tank inspection was easy in the days before SLC. You just looked for water, oil, rust or big pits/holes/dents. If one just made a point of erring on the side of caution, anyone could do a decent inspection. SLC raised the stakes, in that now we had a serious possible problem that would not jump out and hit you on the head. For that reason, I've come to believe that it would have been better if we'd gotten rid of all the 6351 tanks right away, just to keep inspection simple. But the genie is not likely to go back in the bottle, so I think eddy current testers and all those prism and magnifying gadgets will still be with us long after the last 6351 tank they were made to inspect has gone to the smelter.

My biggest beef with the tank inspection agency courses is that I just don't think they are long enough to allow someone with no previous experience to learn to reliably inspect tanks. This was not a problem when the courses were being marketed only to dive professionals, who would be working in a shop environment and be somewhat familiar with tank before taking the course, and usually have someone more experienced to mentor them afterwards. It can be a problem now that the courses are being aggressively marketed to individual divers, who then go home and inspect tanks more or less in vacuum, with little chance for correction of any misconceptions they may have brought back from the class.

The good news is that, from what I have seen, the undertrained inspector is more likely to reject a good tank than pass a bad one, so overall safety probably doesn't suffer too badly. But as Luis says, a lot of perfectly good steel 72s probably get trashed for naught.

Food for thought.
Does the untrained guy know what to look for when inspecting a tank for defects ?\