General welding questions that dont fit in TIG, MIG, Stick, or Certification etc.
BoomerangJ
  • Posts:
  • Joined:
    Fri Dec 15, 2017 9:51 am

MarkL wrote:Tractor supply by us only has small tanks, maybe by you it's different. I'd compare prices, make sure they aren't going to rob you on the refill cost.
Went by my local Tractor supply. They have the following tank sizes:
Oxygen: 20, 40, 80, 125, 251, and 390 cu. ft.
Acetylene: 10, 40, 75, and 145 cu. ft.

I'm thinking the 251 cu/ ft. oxygen and the 145 cu. ft. acetylene.

Prices for the same size acetylene fill are the same at the welding supply place and tractor supply: $59.99 and $60.00

The oxygen at tractor supply is twice as much. $21.00 vs. $42.00. Tractor supply is a 25 minute round trip, welding supply is a 90 minute round trip-downtown. I hate downtown. Much rather support a local welding supply place-but wow the inconvenience in this case might be too much to overcome. I could see being in the middle of a project, running out of gas on a Friday!
BoomerangJ
  • Posts:
  • Joined:
    Fri Dec 15, 2017 9:51 am

Hi All-

This is a great forum. Very friendly in nature and that is a nice change!

My torch outfit came back from Torch and Regulator exchange. Talked with Jim Billingsley a time or two on the phone. This is a great place to work with. Highly recommend. In my situation I needed to get new regulators-mine were not rebuildable. My hoses were old and had to be replaced. The repair cost was pretty close to just buying a new set-but for sentimental reasons I went ahead and had mine updated/rebuilt. I purchased Harris regulators-so may have ended up with a little bit better set up then the new Smiths kit in that price range.

I have been slowed down on getting my work space set up. Two reasons-It's been cold in Texas! I grew up in Iowa-but my blood has long since "thinned out". And I'm waiting for a container to be delivered to store items to clean up my garage. The container was my Christmas present to my wife! Pretty romantic-right? We are still waiting for it as well. Cold stopped them from painting it and getting it ready.

I will then go to Tractor supply and get the tanks and fire this old torch up! Thanks for all the advice and help. I've been on YouTube learning about all the things i was doing wrong-both arc welding and with the torch. But a lot of correct practices to. It's amazing what an application of a little common sense will do in the way of doing things right!

I've been lusting for a welding table now-along with the tooling. Those seem to cost some real money. Did find a couple of candidates on Craigs List. But will also be perusing the project section to if there are some good designs to copy and build. I like the one I saw in this forum where the guy had built in some nice scrap storage bins.
aland
  • Posts:
  • Joined:
    Thu Dec 28, 2017 11:10 pm

I've also used RegulatorTorchRepair.com on a Victor regulator and it came back looking great, they repainted it and it looked like it had come from the factory, although the finish was slightly different. They did an XLNT job IMO and I've had no problem with it for about 7 or 8 years.

Alan
Post Reply