well this bites...

[FredT]

Roak,
Nice to meet you again!

As to the LDS having what I need, I believe it's the other way around. Those who refuse to fill a "properly inspected and marked tank" per the new DOT rules after 1 Jan '07 will find considerable pressure to do so. I'm afraid I'll be withholding ALL my diving $ from those establishments, and I'll be pushing hard to encourage others to do so. This is a path I recommend for all divers. Please note that I have no dog in this fight but will fully support those LDS who care enough to actually become educated. The local shops I do business with in MS do have a clue, as does the one I usually use in Pompano when down there.

FT

 

[superstar]

The tank problem would be a moot issue for me since my LDS won't even fill any pre-1988 Luxfer tanks, period. There very common on ebay for cheap prices because the sellers can't get them filled.

I just bought one on e-bay for $21, I'm glad the guy that auctioned it off could not get it filled because I can get if filled no problem.

 

[captain]

They have what you want.... not the other way around

Wrong, they have nothing I want. If every LDS went out of business tomorrow it wouldn't be a blip on my radar screen.

 

[sungod357]

If you cant get it inspected, see if there is any one in you area doing paint ball. they sometimes use old dive tanks to fill the smaller canisters for paintball guns. just a thought. good luck
sungod

 

[JahJahwarrior]

That's one of many reasons I wanted to get my own dive equipment: I play paintball and want a better way to fill my HPA tank

 

[MikeFerrara]

Refusing the fill the cylinders is pure and unadulterated greed. The LDS’ won’t fork out to properly train their employees, they point to their own failures (improperly inspected 6351 cylinders going boom) and blame the alloy, rather than the real problem (their self regulating industry is failing to self regulate) and then have the audacity to really stick it to their customers by selling them another cylinder (which is 10 years who knows – they might come up with another fear, rather than logic based reason to stop filling).

It’s pretty downright disgusting when you look at what’s really happening.

Roak

I agree with a lot of what you say and you're right, I don't trust dive shop inspections...or anything else that most shops do. The "self regulation" of the dive industry is a total joke and I won't ever willingly allow my life or property to depend on it's effectiveness. Still, it does have something to do with the alloy because other alloys don't seem to have the problem regardless of how small the problem is. So, there you go, if a tank really needs a "proper inspection" I'll do it or I will at least know the one who did or it don't count.

LOL and the margin on selling an AL tank sucked. I made about the same just inspecting and filling a tank as I did selling one. Selling al tanks was just trading dollars eacept it was my dollars that were out while the tank sat on the shop floor. ok, I could make a few bucks if the customer wanted a boot and a net. LOL. Of course, toward the end we raised the price but then we didn't sell any tanks. Most people baught them on line and came in to get a sticker and a fill. It's a good thing that I need a lot of tanks because I still have plenty. I have boots and nets too, you want me to send you some? I have some colors that will nicely contrast DIR black and you'll be the envy of everyone in cave country. You'll probably even get wistled at and I'll bet that don't happen very often.

 

[MikeFerrara]

It always amazes me the bizarre skew that people have when dealing with statistics.

Roger’s rule of inverse headlines: The rarer the event, the more you’ll hear about it.

Take airplane crashes: Very rare, in the US we loose a couple hundred people a year, but it’s always front page headlines, sometimes for days.

Car crashes; in the US we loose over 25,000 people a year. Mostly page two or three news or more likely in the “Metro” section.

Unfortunately I MUST drive in order to conduct my trade but the time that I spend on the toll roads around Chixago scares the hell out of me some days.

Before I go any further, realize that I’m not downplaying anyone’s death, it’s tragic. But we make risk/benefit decisions every day. Like getting in a car, the most likely place for any one of us to die by accident.

agreed and for the number of 6531 tanks around and the number of people wanting to get them filled, there is very little incentive to bother with them. No benefit and some increased risk.

Just because something’s improved, does not make its predecessor “dangerous”. If a car manufacturer improves its seatbelts, it does not make the previous year’s model a deathtrap.

Aspirin and other NSAIDs cause over 7,000 deaths in the US every year (http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/127/6/429) – who’s going to now head to their medicine cabinet and throw out their aspirin?

So let’s look at 6351 and 6061. Well, so far 6061 looks like a better material, but we don’t have the “run time” on the alloy that we have on 6061. Perhaps in ten more years some failure mode will show up with 6061 too. Time will tell.

some testing might tell something too. Is anyone doing it?

But is 6351 dangerous? Again, just because 6061 may be better doesn’t make 6351 bad.

With close to 4 million 6351 alloy cylinders in use there have been less than two dozen well publicized failures of 6351. Roger’s rule of inverse headlines comes in here (though in this case it’s how much you hear about it on the internet). Failures are rare. Very rare. Extremely rare.

Two dozen...and how many similar failures of 6061 tanks? How many pressure cycled did the exploded tanks have on them? When it comes to explosions of a thing that isn't needed and is inexpensive to replace, two dozen sounds like a huge number.

If you feel the amount of deaths from 6351 justifies the removal of the cylinders from service, let’s look at one more statistic:

About 100 people A YEAR die SCUBA diving. If you really want to be safer, give that up BEFORE you start looking at 6351 as a risk factor. And if you’re a smoker, don’t even bother to complain about 6351. Eventually you’ll be one of the over 400,000 people in the US that die from tobacco use every year in the US.

I get to control my own diving and the next guys chances of getting killed doing it aren't necessarily the same as mine. I also get to choose what I eat, drink or smoke. On the other hand, if I still had a shop, some would want me to fill 6531 tanks without letting ME see those threads myself because they don't explode all that often. No thanks.

Again, any death is tragic. But if you’re really serious about saving your life or someone else’s life (like the tank filler at your LDS) you really need to look at what will statistically save the most lives per dollar spent. And in the tank filler’s case, you’d get more bang for your buck through properly training tank inspectors than blaming 6351 for the problems we’re seeing.

Roak

None of us will get out of this life alive but we have some choices that may effect how and when we leave it.

I am a trained instpector as was everyone who ever inspected a tank in my shop. Unfortunately, I never had any control over any other shop or their inspections. I've seen how some shops inspect tanks and as far as I'm concerned visual stickers are meaningless.

 

[mirrocraft]

there are alot of vintage divers out there that dive with nothing but old gear you may bea able to get 50 - 80 plus shipping from it on ebay tanks tend to go higher on there for some reason just make shore you dont mislead anyone tell them everything you have told us but some people buy old tanks as well to make lamps out of them and thay sell for more then a new tank lol go figure

 

[PerroneFord]

Man, what a read.

My shop has some 6351 cylinders. In fact, I just did the vis and eddy tests last weekend. Will we fill them? Sure.

If YOU bring me a 6351 cylinder for filling, will I fill it? Nope. Not unless you let me look at it first. And no I won't charge you for it.

Greed? Nope. We don't even sell tanks at our shop. I could care less about selling you a new tank. I like my legs and my life.

If I am the guy putting gas in that tank, I want to be comfortable doing so. My safety is my paramount concern. Some shops in our area won't fill ANY AL tank over 5 years old. That's insane. But it's their choice. We just carry more tanks when we load up.

When it all comes down to it, I don't care WHAT the owner things, or what stickers he has on his tank. If I am not comfortable filling the tank, I'm not going to do it. Period. And I will gladly steer him or her to another shop who might be able to help them out. I do think it's somewhat silly to categorically not deal with 6351 tanks, but I can see why someone wouldn't want to.

As for whoever said that we don't have a track record on 6061 tanks, you might want to check back. I believe 6061 tanks were used in the 40s and 50s.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

As an update, the tank is being Vipped right now. Passed hydro with flying colours--.8 ( milliliters, right?) permanent expansion. It can go out of the shop with anything less than 10, so zero point eight is pretty darn good! I had the guy write down the test data on my receipt so I could show it to the dive shop. Two shops flat out refused, the third (which is one of the better ones, the owner is a super cool guy) said they would test it and if it failed only charge me half the cost. The guy there was really cool about it, especially after he realized I had done my homework in this area. He showed me cracks in some cylindrs and told me some history of things. Turn sout alot of shops are refusing to fill their tanks that they rent, which are made of whatever is the normal alloy now, just because they are from before 88. Stupid in my opinion. If I dive alot, I'm going to become an instructor, so I can train others to dive, then I'll become trained to service everything I own without voiding warranties, include hydro and visual testing of tanks. I'll work with a company and pay them to use their equipment but I'll run my own hydrtests myself. Slip them whatever they charge for a hydro but performthe test myself. VIP I'll do too. I'll have my own compressor and I'll fill my own tanks, and I'll stop talking to anyone else in the entire world. The world is full of people who do things for semi stupid reasons. I can understand not wanting to fill 6351 tanks, but what about other tanks? I heard of one shop that would only fill tanks on their original hydro. ??? ***? I don't like dealing with industries that make no sense but still want to be self regulating.