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Cost to get a bottle recertified?

Pt_Ranger_v8

Pt_Ranger_v8

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So I picked up a little mig welder locally. Came with a bottle (and I'm a dumbass that ddin't check :homer:) that's out of date.

How fucked am I when I got to refill the bottle?

It's an older Airgas bottle, but I would rather not deal with them, since I've heard nothing good about it.


edit: it's a 125cf? sized tank. About 5 feet tall, 6" in diameter:homer:
 
Pt_Ranger_v8 said:
So I picked up a little mig welder locally. Came with a bottle (and I'm a dumbass that ddin't check :homer:) that's out of date.

How fucked am I when I got to refill the bottle?

It's an older Airgas bottle, but I would rather not deal with them, since I've heard nothing good about it.


edit: it's a 125cf? sized tank. About 5 feet tall, 6" in diameter:homer:
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You may have bought a rented bottle if it had airgas on the collar. You might be stock exchanging it at airgas. Better to exchange for a full bottle then pay for testing and wait for it to return.
 
Duc said:
You may have bought a rented bottle if it had airgas on the collar. You might be stock exchanging it at airgas. Better to exchange for a full bottle then pay for testing and wait for it to return.
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since it's ~10 years out of date, I doubt it's a rental. It may be though.
 
Try going to another supplier and getting it swapped out. Part of what you're paying for when you do an exchange is the tank cert. My local Arc3 doesn't even look at the dates or care. I've bought way outdated forklift propane tanks for $15 on marketplace and they happily exchange them. If they won't take it because it's a marked/collared leased bottle, your only hope is go go try swapping it at Airgas and see if they'll take it without asking questions.
 
I recently bought a used torch with what I thought was an old acetylene bottle. Brought it in with my empty mig bottle to exchange, no hassle. Replacement acetylene bottle looks just the same, no valve guard.

Don’t remember what I paid last time but the cashier said welding gas is one thing that hasn’t jumped in price.
 
Check with a local fire protection equipment company. They often recert the plain pressure vessels.

Acetylene is a special tank you'll have to get certified elsewhere.
 
Assuming the sticker says Airgas on it and not the neck of the bottle.

I would give your Airgas place a chance to see what they say. My local dealer is great.

My dad has several pallets of rental bottles that he purchased at auction. My local Airgas has no problem exchanging one of those for a “owner “bottle.

I loaded up the truck with bottles of all other brands and visited four different welding shops trying to exchange them, nobody else would go for it. I guess they will get unloaded at auction.
 
Thatg9659 said:
I recently bought a used torch with what I thought was an old acetylene bottle. Brought it in with my empty mig bottle to exchange, no hassle. Replacement acetylene bottle looks just the same, no valve guard.

Don’t remember what I paid last time but the cashier said welding gas is one thing that hasn’t jumped in price.
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Cashier is full of poop.

Has gone up about 30% in the last ~2 years.
 
I take my out of date bottles I acquire to my local Napa auto parts. They’ll exchange and don’t seem to care on the date.
 
bad zuki said:
See if your tracktor supply takes bottles. They just swap them out.
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Home Depot should do that too on a 125, those are all customer owned bottles around me and the Thoroughbred gas company swaps them at TSC and HD.
 
Local privately owned place won't touch a bottle owned by someone else. It it's stamped on the collar the will tell you to take to to whomever owns it. I was given a 50lb CO2 tank that I can't exchange because it belongs to a soda company. It was removed from the scene of an accident by the local FD and emptied. SO I can either try taking it back to a bottling plant if they will take it, or it's scrap.
 
Thatg9659 said:
I’m sure up there you’ve had a bigger change than here. I don’t use enough to pay attention.
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I think it depends on the store more than the area. I used to go to Airgas because they were the name I know. They're were absolutely raping me on C25. Arc3 will almost always put me on somebody else's cash commercial account and they end up being about 1/2 of what I was paying at airgas.
 
Pony_Driver said:
Local privately owned place won't touch a bottle owned by someone else. It it's stamped on the collar the will tell you to take to to whomever owns it. I was given a 50lb CO2 tank that I can't exchange because it belongs to a soda company. It was removed from the scene of an accident by the local FD and emptied. SO I can either try taking it back to a bottling plant if they will take it, or it's scrap.
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Or switch out at a beer brewing store?
 
I've never paid for a recertification only. I exchange bottles and it's built into the pricing.

If it is a CO2 tank the largest you might find at a brewing store is a 20lb CO2 tank. They build the recertification into their exchange pricing. See if they'll give you an aluminum cylinder instead of steel. They're much lighter.
 
For the OP, if the bottle hasn’t been hydro’d in a while. More than likely no one will touch it. Same thing with scuba tanks and paintball air tanks.

I tried to purchase a 125 bottle from a local Airgas. They told me, I could only rent one and they’d have to check my credit score/report. I laughed and walked out. With that, I found out about Primeweld. They have welders, consumables, and gas. For a 125cf tank filled with 75% Argon, 25% CO2, shipped to my door for $369.00, and you get to keep the bottle. You can take that bottle anywhere local to get refilled. Obviously, you gotta pay for the refill.
 
Bacho said:
I brought a bottle to national welders that had a initial recertification date of 1946 on it. They definitely didn’t want it. :laughing:
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Sometimes you need to give an old tank a fresh coat of paint, and then roll it around in the gravel a couple times and leave it outside for a few weeks to give it enough patina to look old, but not too old. Allegedly.
 
bgaidan said:
Sometimes you need to give an old tank a fresh coat of paint, and then roll it around in the gravel a couple times and leave it outside for a few weeks to give it enough patina to look old, but not too old. Allegedly.
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Works for when identifying marks go missing from the neck ring too. :laughing:
 
Home brew stores don't want a rusty 50lb steel tank around. They tend to have 5 and 10lb bottes available to swap out and a lot will only refill a 5lb tank. One place I went I asked about getting a 20lb tank filled... NO. They ONLY filled 5lb bottles because they filled from a 50lb tank. It didn't matter if I I paid for 4 5lb fillings. 20lbs of CO2 is 20lbs of CO2, and that was a lost sale.

I don't brew much and don't drink a lot of beer. I have no need for a 50lb tank, but having some 75/25 around for mig welding or another set of bottled for the oxy/acetylene setup would have been nice.
 
Duc said:
You may have bought a rented bottle if it had airgas on the collar. You might be stock exchanging it at airgas. Better to exchange for a full bottle then pay for testing and wait for it to return.
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nope, collar is meaningless
there are plenty of people that will lie to you in order to call you a thief

don't give them business
 
Bacho said:
I brought a bottle to national welders that had a initial recertification date of 1946 on it. They definitely didn’t want it. :laughing:
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spent way too long looking for the picture of an acetylene bottle from the teens that I saw, have this co2 one instead:
20220814_161503.jpeg

as an aside the foursquares aren't necessarily swastikas:
20231017_155149.jpeg


I think it was linde that used to use the swastika
 
First of it's a c25 mig bottlw, 125cf

Well, took it to the local mom & pop place.

He recommended me take it to his supplier on the other side of the city.

$41 recert fee, $40 refill and I have a new bottle that's in date for another 5 years of use or so.

Feels like the gas price was a little high, but I'm not too upset since I walked in off the street.
 
Pt_Ranger_v8 said:
First of it's a c25 mig bottlw, 125cf

Well, took it to the local mom & pop place.

He recommended me take it to his supplier on the other side of the city.

$41 recert fee, $40 refill and I have a new bottle that's in date for another 5 years of use or so.

Feels like the gas price was a little high, but I'm not too upset since I walked in off the street.
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That doesn't sound crazy for a 125 of C25. Pretty sure airgas charges close to that for a 40 exchange here. :shaking:


Did they actually recert and fill your tank or did they swap it and just charge you a fee for the expired tank?


None of the places around me will actually refill anything on site so you either let them send it out and hope you get it back a week later, or pay a little more and just exchange. I have about a dozen CO2 tanks that I use for OBA and an easily transported air supply around my property. When i lived in Houston, there was an airgas filling plant right near my office and it was under $10 to get a 20lb tank filled. I think it's over $30 to exchange now.
 
bgaidan said:
That doesn't sound crazy for a 125 of C25. Pretty sure airgas charges close to that for a 40 exchange here. :shaking:


Did they actually recert and fill your tank or did they swap it and just charge you a fee for the expired tank?


None of the places around me will actually refill anything on site so you either let them send it out and hope you get it back a week later, or pay a little more and just exchange. I have about a dozen CO2 tanks that I use for OBA and an easily transported air supply around my property. When i lived in Houston, there was an airgas filling plant right near my office and it was under $10 to get a 20lb tank filled. I think it's over $30 to exchange now.
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It was an exchange. I'm not put out by that - this bottle had the neck stamped "airgas" but went out of cert in 2011.

~$80 for a non-airgas bottle sure beats the $300-375 for a new, empty bottle :laughing:
 
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