What to do with old oxy and acetylene bottles...?

[Nearly]

Jackpot
I've got 20 left behind by a previous owner.
Will they ask any awkward questions about where I got them from ?

https://www.calor.co.uk/unwanted-calor-bottle-return

private customer, reasonable condition, maximum of 5.
Sounds like a family outing to me.

 

[7610 super q]

https://www.calor.co.uk/unwanted-calor-bottle-return

private customer, reasonable condition, maximum of 5.
Sounds like a family outing to me.

Nearest depot....Aberystwyth... 150 mile round trip X 4 trips.... Jackpot dwindling.
Well Neath is 142 miles.....but not much of a day trip.

 

[Bobthebuilder]

I have plans to turn 1 of the large propane bottles into a patio heater, log fuelled in the shape of a traction engine sometime, made a small log burner out of a mac gas bottle for the joiners workshop a while ago [emoji1303]

 

[David.]

BOC used to be most fastidious about gathering up their bottles that were out on "unofficial hire".
Steelshop in town lost agency, and was a bit of a to-do about bottles being exchanged for cash, some years ago.
They had a woman like the one in James Bond with the spike in her shoe, and a chippy male ex-copper tracking them (us) all down.
We were in clear with Inland Revenue because always paid on a steel invoice.

 

[Nearly]

One local company were swapping 'their' full BOC bottles for customers' empties.
When the bottle ID's came in and the company sent 'stray' cylinders back as their own, BOC just added another bottle onto the hire agreement.
It got to 20 bottles hire per year before the company secretary mentioned it in passing to the MD.
They don't swap cylinders for people now.

 

[David.]

Technology has removed all the fun.

 

[Land Rover]

Ach , that rental thing is the worst caper that ever started .
I rented one bottle of Argon and then found another identical at the dump .
Me and a mate were using the two bottles from one account , no problemo .
Surely it's not outwith the bounds of possibility that any of us would help a mate out on a job and swap bottles , a cylinders a cylinder . Unless I'm being rented a serial number then I can't see that I'd be culpable .

 

[David.]

Just don't have a mate that changes 2 bottles on the same day, "to save going twice" or you will end up with an extra hire to pay, until he takes back the spare bottle and surrenders it.

 

[v8willy]

BOC used to be most fastidious about gathering up their bottles that were out on "unofficial hire".
Steelshop in town lost agency, and was a bit of a to-do about bottles being exchanged for cash, some years ago.
They had a woman like the one in James Bond with the spike in her shoe, and a chippy male ex-copper tracking them (us) all down.
We were in clear with Inland Revenue because always paid on a steel invoice.

Was an ex copper that tracked them here supposedly, his chat up line was to ask if anyone local could weld his car exhaust in the days before mig welding, then he checked the bottles wherever he got sent.

Technology has removed all the fun.

It only makes it more fun

 

[Netherfield]

One local company were swapping 'their' full BOC bottles for customers' empties.
When the bottle ID's came in and the company sent 'stray' cylinders back as their own, BOC just added another bottle onto the hire agreement.
It got to 20 bottles hire per year before the company secretary mentioned it in passing to the MD.
They don't swap cylinders for people now.

Many years ago in Clayton West there was an engineering firm who would swap bottles of Oxygen, biggish setup, 50 bottles a time from BOC, the sh!t hit the fan when one day the wagon arrived and they couldn't find 50 empties to send back. Someone had been selling bottles out the back door without an exchange for a while it seems.

 

[mushnt grummmble]

It only makes it more fun

Just get a pipe with 2 5/8male fittings on and balance the pressure with a mate and go halves with him

 

[Nearly]

Just get a pipe with 2 5/8male fittings on and balance the pressure with a mate and go halves with him

er no.
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13573610.Eye_and_part_of_hand_lost_in_engineering_accident/

 

[mushnt grummmble]

er no.
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13573610.Eye_and_part_of_hand_lost_in_engineering_accident/

They made a new hose and sure as eggs is eggs the put oil on the crimps
Oil and pressurised oxy goes bang

 

[Nearly]

They made a new hose and sure as eggs is eggs the put oil on the crimps
Oil and pressurised oxy goes bang

I'd sussed that one. I assume they have now.

 

[tinman]

Could you not just take them to BOC or whoever originally owned them .
Or I see the local dumps here have cylinder cages for these type of things ( I've had a few bottles out of them ) .
I think the Acetylene is dissolved in acetone and the inside of the cylinder might have charcoal or something in it , probably never safe to cut open .
The oxygen makes a good air receiver if it's cleaned out I'm told .Not sure how clean it has to be , but oil and grease with Oxygen is to be avoided

your right about the acetone inside an acetylene cylinder and what looks like charcoal inside it, way back then iirc they tried asbestos in the first cylinders but that was over 100 yrs ago iirc (i looked it up coz i was curious one time) but afaik its a mix of charcoal and lime silicate in them now.
anyways, of all the empty cylinders an acetylene cylinder is the last one any person want's to go cuttin up as a few slightly suggested.
As the machine said,
danger Will Robinson, danger....

as for getin shot of an old one.
my supplier didnt want to take the old one's back.
i asked my scrap man would he take them and he said he wouldnt touch them.
so i asked a few callers if they had any interest in them for free and nobody wanted them.

so i thought for a bit and i came to the conclusion that the best thing to do (not the most honest thing mind) was advertise them as empty, for sale and at a reasonable price...
i had to wait about two weeks til someone took the bait and one day a lad left the yard here grinning like a Cheshire cat as he left with a score of luck and Me up 80 quid.
i have no idea what he done with them but i disposed of them in an environmentally friendly way as far as i was concerned.
not in an honest way ill agree but hey, that's his Baby.

 

[smcapstick]

I fill them with water before cutting.

Filling them without a vent hole takes forever, though, so you could make your own hole without the danger of drilling.

 

[tinman]

bit of a difference between a propane bottle and an acetylene one tho.

in saying that, i nipped a few cylinders in half in my time, the last one i did was only a week ago.
screwed the top off, blew air with the blow gun through the top for a min or so and nipped it in half with the plasma in an open space, ive never had one try light on me that way, or not yet anyways.
of course im not saying folk should do it that way, keep filling them with water i say.

 

[glasshouse]

This is what one looks like after it explodes !!! (Driver survived)

what happened?
i once picked up two oxy cylinders from local blacksmith and set off home.
got back to workshop, back door open and no cylinders, had to go looking. found them luckily not in town centre, just lying by roadside.

 

[Kidds]

Local farmer in hospital just before Christmas due to bad experience from cutting propane cylinder.
I know the man and I wouldn't call him a fool but he did do summat foolish.

 

[Badshot]

Acetylene cylinders should be transported upright if possible, if not they at least need leaving upright for a day when you get back to allow everything to settle again.
I didn't know that for years.