Anything welding

Many thanks!

 

I (respectfully and humbly) disagree with some of this.

I own all of my bottles, 250 to 330 and will never rent a tank ever again. Rental / lease of any size is a loss unless you only want the bottle (specialty gas) for a single job / short time. Same with the program I run, 100+ bottles between the two campuses, and we own them all because rent is a waste.

I do agree that Airgas is hard to deal with. I closed my 10 year+ account with them when they got bought out by Air Liquide years back and became even harder to deal with than usual. Definitely stay independent, but also shop around for the best deal.

All of my purchases came with an "affidavit of ownership" to prove I own the bottles, and I make sure that stays on every exchange receipt before I leave the store. Never had a problem with any neckrings, i don't care where the bottle came from, as long as my receipt shows that I own the bottle before I walk out. Had to correct it a few times, but always easy to mention and never had an issue.

Buy, buy, buy! (IMHO)

Edited to reduce how asinine I sounded.

 

@koditten

The connector is a Euro Central connector which seems to be used on a variety of other machines -



The diameter of the port is 1 5/16" at the machine -



The center connector's length is 1 1/4" extending past the assembly; it's slightly longer but my tape won't fit inside -



The connector housing itself is 6 1/2" long.



And the pins that are used are 1 3 6 9 -



These measurements are all from my handtorch but it's the same brand (italian-made, Tecmo) as the machine torch -



Hope this helps!

 

I'm not sure I give a shit on owning vs leasing a tank.

Even when I was going thru 6 cans a year,I never thought the lease was that bad. The gas lasts quite a while.

I could build 20 6 x 10 utility trailers on 1 can. Please don't ask me the size, all I know is they heavy AF to lift onto the cradle when full.

I was paying anywhere from $35-$75 per can.

$3-$4/ trailer isn't enough to worry about.

As listed above, a relationship with the welding supplier will save you money. Now that I'm only buying a can 1/year, the counter help doesn't know me, so I pay top dollar.

Again, no biggie, the gas last a long time.

 

Thanks! I'm sure it will! I will be referring to these pics in March.

Thanks, again!

 

Yeah, was going to say even shops out here recommend you buying versus leasing/renting unless you're doing a single job with a specific gas you don't normally use.

And as for sizes, there are no differences here aside from costs.

I went 150CF for both my tanks versus a larger one because I have a bad back and don't want to load/unload a large heavy bottle from my vehicle.

 

@koditten

You have a 675 right?

XT40 torch?

Shows your machine has a quick disconnect style setup, and Miller offers a machine torch with that same connector.

Here's the hand torch it comes with - Miller XT40 Hand Held Plasma Torch w/ Disconnect, 20 ft - 260635 — Baker's Gas & Welding Supplies, Inc. (bakersgas.com)

Here's the machine torch -Miller XT40M Short Body Machine Torch w/ Disconnect, 25 ft - 257462 — Baker's Gas & Welding Supplies, Inc. (bakersgas.com)

 

I wont disagree other than here, Airgas/Praxair (Air Liquide/Linde) will not sell or exchange a customer owned 244/330 size cylinder. I spent time at both and in Texas they have a standing policy against larger customer owned. If you want to buy from an independent, and have a back up cylinder, you are looking at $800-$1000 for two cylinders full of gas. Thats a lot of money for a hobby. Buy a 150 or smaller, get one cylinder and trade it out at the Home Depot or Tractor Supply on a Sunday if you want.

It's what ever makes sense for you financially, but if you buy a used cylinder you better have someone who knows the ins/outs of what they are looking at with you. A name on the neck ring could be a no go when you go to get it filled or exchanged, and I have seen cylinders confiscated when trying to exchange, an imperceptible arc burn means you just bought scrap iron. There is no blanket right or wrong, but there are pitfalls to be aware of. My thoughts come strictly from the knowledge of working in the biz within Texas for 40 years. All bets are off if you know the people real well.

As a side note, here in the DFW area, Airgas refuses to handle accounts with a 100+ customer owned jugs, they dont have a way to quarantine the customer owned versus rental and your cylinders get lost. My last year in Airgas was 2009, I had to do a cylinder audit on ONCOR and asked for a listing of all Airgas owned ringnecks, there were over 4,000 names on ringnecks then.

 

My last lease was $77 per year on a 300cf (15 years ago, no idea what a rental costs now), my last bottle purchase was $200 (which is super cheap, most should expect more) for a 300cf ... easy math for me.

The only reason I buy big bottles is to reduce trips. Even if its only 1 time a year, I value my time so more bigger is more better for me, but a 300 is a pain to load / unload at home, so smaller is defifitely better for that. I keep a 60 ( or 40 or 80, dunno) of c25 for the odd mobile job I do ... for that same reason ... easy to move and my back doesnt hurt st the end of the day.

I dont care what anyone says, size doesnt matter, but i always suggest folks buy over lease of they can and if it makes sense. The ability to buy online (bakers / cyberwled / weldfab / etc) in recent years has just reinforced my belief and my suggestion.

Definitely worth rental for the oddball hydrogen mix I get for thin stainless, and for those that are maybe trying out welding as a hobby and maybe not sold on it, though.

 

Policies have certainly changed since 2009 then, as the Airgas Intermountain rep has repeatedly tried to get our business and assures us our inventory of owned cylinders would not be a problem ... but they cant compete with our current pricing: currently we pay a touch over $8 (thats eight dollars, not a typo) each for our 251 O², and around $36 for a 300(?) C25.

 

I have the older version of 675. It actually looks more like your Hypertherm than like the version of 675 that is now made.

That torch is not what I have either.

Wish I was home, I'd dive in and put the collective brains here to work.

 

I own my all my tanks as well, and when I brought back one of my 250cf tanks from my dads place an exchanged it, there was no questions, other than they did ask me to sign an affidavit of ownership, so they have a record of of the tank being owned an not leased. they said it was only an issue with the larger tanks since they only lease the large ones.

 

Every region is different, there has been a cylinder shortage going on for the last year and we were getting lead times for 100 330cf size cylinder of close to a year from Norris. Our cost buying 200 at a time has been around $350 each.

Buying is good if you can afford it, but if you need 20 cylinders to operate, and you exchange those 20 weekly, you need to buy at a minimum 60 cylinders so while yours are out getting refilled you can continue to operate. Here in Dallas it seems to take about 3 weeks to get your cylinders back. In the past I would not touch large accounts with customer owned if we had to give them their own cylinders back. I have written contracts stating we will merge your cylinders in to ours and upon termination of business by either party we will give you back the same number of cylinders with proof of ownership. Thats as good as I would go, too much liability for lost cylinders to do it any other way.

I'm out of the user end of it these days but from what I have seen from our salesguys, rent here in DFW runs from $12 to $18 a month per cylinder, if you cant pass a credit check a deposit of $600 a cylinder is required, purchases are $500 to $600 each for a slick neck cylinder and a retest is running $50+.

It's not a cheap biz no matter how you look at it. Upside is customer owned cylinder hold their value but downside, are easy targets for theft.

 

In Texas you are not required to have proof of ownership on 150CF or less. Though some companies like Linde do the lifetime lease and will try to keep them. It's bogus, but I have seen it happen. Most store managers dont buy in to it and freely exchange cylinders with you.

 

Things are certainly different here. We never wait for a refill with our supplier. We own the cylinders and do a straight swap once to twice a week usually 20ish cylinders at a time. Call them and let them know we have 20 O², 20 C25, 10 Ar, 10 Acetylen, and a few fl propane and they show up the next day and swap.

At $18 a month, its insanely wasteful to rent, even if its $500 for a bottle. Another reason to never reopen my account with Airgas. Gotta serve the customer or the customer will go find the service.

 

It used to be possible to convert a Thermal Dynamics

$119 SL-100 SiteLite Mag Laser Boresighter Black/Red/Silver

SL-100 (maybe it was called one-torch) to just about any plasma. I dont remember if it could be had with a 180 degree head. I'm having to stir brain cells that havent been used in a while, and I may be answering a question no one has asked as well LOL

 

I'll research it. Thanks!

 

It's kind of an economy of scale thing as well, largest customer I ever had had 700 cylinders, at $400 each to purchase thats a lot of outlay, plus accounting likes rental as it is easier to pull off for purchasing than assets. In the big picture, a lot of companies consider $3000 a month rental chicken feed (I dont, but they do) I want to say the last meeting I had with NUCOR someone mentioned their down time at the plant we were at was north of $60,000 a minute. I saw the numbers, they bought $3,200 a day in safety supplies. it's hard for me to get my head wrapped around those numbers even today.

 

Funny he said that cause when I was looking up various connectors, a connector with a pigtail at the end popped up.

Seems it's common for people to switch connector styles on old machines for current torches, etc.

 

I was thinking this, too.

I would think If a person can put together a plasma table, swapping the connectors would be cake.