Hobby tig welding bottle

[wookie]

Just buy proper leak detection fluid. It’s not expensive and safe with gas and fittings.

I've always used the proper stuff at work, it's just at home I'm a tight git use the soapy water

That’s terrible from a contamination point of view and from a corrosion point of view. Alkaline fluid on brass.

I said someone would be along in a minute to say it was a bad idea and you didn't fail me , I never said it was a good idea just what I have done in the past and just for the record I've never had any corrosion of the brass fittings. I've done it for other people when they have put their regs on dry and had a leak but after I re-did it with a bit of washing up liquid the leak then stopped, @Brad93 what would be a better substance to use then ? I'm always willing to learn and change my habits.

 

[Brad93]

I've always used the proper stuff at work, it's just at home I'm a tight git use the soapy water


I said someone would be along in a minute to say it was a bad idea and you didn't fail me , I never said it was a good idea just what I have done in the past and just for the record I've never had any corrosion of the brass fittings. I've done it for other people when they have put their regs on dry and had a leak but after I re-did it with a bit of washing up liquid the leak then stopped, @Brad93 what would be a better substance to use then ? I'm always willing to learn and change my habits.

Nothing; you're not meant to put any foreign fluids or materials on to regulators. Especially oxygen.

Once you've tightened

 

[Richard.]

what would be a better substance to use then ? I'm always willing to learn and change my habits.

You’ve got a bull nose on the reg and a seat in the cylinder out let.
The idea being the two surfaces mating up is the seal. Brass is quite soft so as you nip them up they ever so slightly squash together. You don’t over tighten and deform them.
Now the problem is like I say brass is soft and it doesn’t take much for a scratch or dent in the reg bull nose to screw up your entire day and pour the expensive contents of your bottle out into the air. A fix for this is not a thread seal. Especially not a grease or oil and like brad said NEVER do that on an O2 reg please.
The fix is a new bull nose on your reg and fit it dry. I personally don’t recommend pulling regs apart either but that’s up to you so imho the fix is a new reg or new bottle with a better seat. On top out let bottles like Boc it’s common for crap when the reg is out to get in there and make a bad seal so before you fit your reg give the tap a short sharp blast to clean the seat.

 

[wookie]

The idea being...

Thanks for your comprehensive reply, unfortunately it's stuff I already know. I agree that in an ideal world whenever you get a poor seal you would replace the damaged part of the reg or swop the bottle for another that isn't damaged... In the real world the choice is usually either somehow make a good seal and crack on with your welding or give up for the day. Sadly we can't all work in places that will always follow best practises, heck I've worked in places that didn't want to swop out of date regs for new ones, didn't want to replace flashback arrestors after the hoses had been on fire, etc etc

I know about the dangers of oxygen bottles and would never use anything on them but on an inert gas bottle I'll take my chances with contamination if it means I can get the job done and get paid for the day.

 

[Richard.]

In the real world the choice is usually either somehow make a good seal and crack on with your welding or give up for the day.

I live in the real world too. I’m sure there are other options. It’s not worth getting into a debate over as we shall still go away doing things the way we did but in my world the options don’t include trying to seal a bull nose with gunk on the threads because contamination costs me far more time in rework. I don’t take chances with weld quality. No ifs or buts on that. I just keep a couple of cheap regs on the shelf which get me going again if my primary reg fails.
The chances the bottle seat been damaged is very slim. I’ve only ever seen it once.

 

[mrsbruce]

(Said in quiet voice). I only asked about my bottle.........

 

[Hood]

(Said in quiet voice). I only asked about my bottle.........

Aye right!!!! we all know what your game is, start off a subject all innocent like and just sit back and wait for the rest to follow

 

[gaz1]

(Said in quiet voice). I only asked about my bottle.........

might have asked about the bottle however the rest of the info is also good info more so to some that dont know about it

 

[wookie]

(Said in quiet voice). I only asked about my bottle.........

My apologies, just this once I'll try to remain on topic

Since you have a Mig bottle why don't you put your Tig regulator on that, set everything as if you were gonna do some Tig welding, open the bottle's gas tap so the pressure gauge shows the bottle psi and then close it. Then watch to see if the pressure falls, if it does then you have a leak, if it doesn't then you probably were given a duff bottle.

 

[mrsbruce]

I did that yesterday, and the dials are working, but I will recheck it for a bit longer, but again, with 20 minutes use, I’m sure I would have noticed a leak, but checking the guages for more than 30 seconds makes sense.

 

[Richard.]

You won’t notice leaks unless they are absolutely peeing it out. Everyone with a welder should have a tin of leak detection fluid on the shelf. It’s like having a box of drills and no cutting fluid/compound.
Spray it on all your joints and leaks are revealed in a matter of seconds.

 

[mrsbruce]

You won’t notice leaks unless they are absolutely peeing it out. Everyone with a welder should have a tin of leak detection fluid on the shelf. It’s like having a box of drills and no cutting fluid/compound.
Spray it on all your joints and leaks are revealed in a matter of seconds.

Very good and wise advice, and I shall order some today, but the regulator gauge did not register full on the argon bottle, but registers on the mig bottle.

I am now off to chat to suppliers bossman.

 

[Richard.]

Very good and wise advice, and I shall order some today, but the regulator gauge did not register full on the argon bottle, but registers on the mig bottle.

I am now off to chat to suppliers bossman.

Obviously the bottle is a culprit by the sound of it but worth checking all joints for leaks regularly in future anyway. Gas as you know is expensive so don’t go giving it away

 

[mrsbruce]

Got and paid for a refill, but forgot to take my regulator with me to show them it was working. They are sending the old bottle back for testing.

I don’t know, maybe my “the dear thing doesn’t know what she’s talking about” radar was on over-sensitive, but they were not exactly “cheerie”. In fact, I had to stand there while the man gave me a lecture on how to switch the bottle on and off properly. Nothing more guaranteed to make your customer feel irritated, than carefully going through how to use something, especially when she has told you 3 times previousely that that is how she did it.

I smiled, said “I know”, a lot, and came to the conclusion I have just lost that money. Maybe they WILL prove me wrong, and tell me the bottle was goosed. Maybe they are really nice, and I’ve got it all wrong, if so I shall apologise here.

Sorry, rant over, going out to hit things with my ‘quite a big hammer’.

 

[Tangledfeet]

...going out to hit things with my ‘quite a big hammer’.

I can hear you from near Cupar.

 

[wookie]

I don’t know, maybe my “the dear thing doesn’t know what she’s talking about” radar was on over-sensitive, but they were not exactly “cheerie”. In fact, I had to stand there while the man gave me a lecture on how to switch the bottle on and off properly. Nothing more guaranteed to make your customer feel irritated, than carefully going through how to use something, especially when she has told you 3 times previousely that that is how she did it.

Sadly I think it'll be a case of because you sit down to pee equals you obviously know nothing...

Had my neighbour call around the other night asking if I can go through the basics of maintaining her new Landy 90 with her sometime because her husband isn't the least bit practical with cars, I of course said yes. Anyway she got on to how it had a really bad steering wobble above 40mph, so she'd asked on a landy forum what could be the problem as she had checked all the steering links, kingpins etc and there was nothing obviously wrong, so could it be the tyres needing balancing? Well she got the full patronising treatment of "check the kingpins" and "check the steering links" etc even though she had already posted that they were okay and then she got the "well your probably not used to the heavy steering of a landy, you better go back to driving a small car like a Nissan Micra..."

Anyway she gave up on the forum and took it to the local tyre place and asked them to check the wheel balance, sure enough the tyres were massively out of balance, the worst needed 200+g on one side to get it close to being right, it's not perfect now but it's loads better but then again that's Mud Terrains for you.

Now to get back on topic... If you make a note of the pressure when you turn the valve off tonight and check it the following day it shouldn't have changed, if it has you have a leak that needs sorting, Like I said earlier both my Mig sets will hold pressure for weeks on end.

 

[mrsbruce]

I’ll fit the regulator tonight, I might even be able to grab 10 minutes making metal glow.

 

[Richard.]

I’ll fit the regulator tonight, I might even be able to grab 10 minutes making metal glow.

Pics or it never happened

 

[Jlg]

I’ll fit the regulator tonight, I might even be able to grab 10 minutes making metal glow.

It'll be that the original bottle wasn't full I've had two of hobbyweld that's were half empty

 

[Agautosport]

Be aware that the Hobbyweld 9 litre cylinders are only filled to 137 BAR so they won't last as long as our 10 litre 200 BAR cylinders
(For example)

Alan
SGS Gases Ltd