[Franz©]

Air Liquide has now come up with a whole new way to tell you THEY DON'T WANT YOUR BUSINESS.

Evidently they consider the staff some kind of entertainment the customer should pay for, because the computer now charges an extra Store Charge if you opt to walk in and buy something. Air Liquide employees are trained to tell you it's caused by Internet sales making it harder for a brick & mortar store to stay open to meet your needs.

Gee, maybe your high paid MBA people should have given this some thought before you bought a local welding supply business a few years back.
AND, when it comes to meeting my needs, you won't be, ever again, and I do hope that invoice and items I had been willing to pay cash for and carry out today fit comfortably where I told you to shove both as I left empty handed.
Make sure you tell management you really don't need 4 stores in Rochester, and you are in the on line sales business too.

[Downwindtracker2]

Maybe they saw who they were dealing with?

My combination torch set is a Air Liquide . They are the most common ones out there. When I watched Jody's vid on cutting ,he said tip size and pressures should be carefully match to the steel thickness. After having to use a soft faced hammer/torches on job sites this was a bit of an OH moment. So I checked what I had, the set had been given to me when they changed over to a larger size at work. The tips in my tool box I had put aside for my own use were an aught aught and three #2s . mmmm,I thought I had a bigger one from my days in saw mills.

So I stopped by Air Liquide to pick up some tips to fill in my set. What once had been free on jobs were $17.00 each. The price of retirement. The last line the bill was a SERVICE CHARGE, CUSTOMER PICK UP $0.00

Not only that but I got an old copy of "Welding Processes and Filler Metals Data book " new price had been $16.95 in June of '98

[Franz©]

Maybe they saw who they were dealing with?

If Ringnose didn't when I walked in, he dam sure did whan I left.
I gave him a detailed explanation of what he could do with the grinder and strongly suggested he crinkle the invoice well before using it to wipe his fundament after completing insertion after he pointed out "It's computer generated I can't change it".

I remain unconvinced they need 4 retail stores within 3 miles of each other in Rochester, but they dam well won't be paying for any of them with my business.

[Downwindtracker2]

Yes he could have, the guy I talked to did. And gave me a book.

[Franz©]

My hunch is Ringnose was more interested in getting back to playing air guitar with the creature with gigantic plastic doughnuts in his ears.

[Downwindtracker2]

I've seen cattle with a ring in their noses.

The Air Liquide regulators are not being made any more. There is quite a market for rebuilt used ones. I paid $100 at a LWS for an oxygen one as a gift to my son. I think that would make a great birthday present, don't you ?

[Franz©]

I'm a poor authority on birthday gifts for sons/step or otherwise.
I offered to knock the teeth out of the step for his filthy mouth around his mom. She told me I couldn't cause she had over $3000 invested in his teeth. I told the boy to go fetch my checkbook. His mom stopped him on the way to the desk.

In your situation, if the kid is old enough to appreciate what he's getting and will treat it appropriate to the worth, not the price, I'd say he's making out well.

Over the years I've noticed torch brands seem to be very regional. Back in the 50s, 3 different distributors in this town all had "their" valve on theeir cylinders to insure customer loyalty, and you could get Victor, Smith or Airco torches. Don't recall when everybody got on the same page. The funny part was watching the 1 distributor's truck haul his cylinders to the other guy's fill station when it went in. Beat hell out of taking cylinders for a 150 mile ride. You'd be hard put to find anything AL in this town, never was a presence here till AirGoof arrived 15 years back just in time to watch what they thought would be their main customers collapse.

[Downwindtracker2]

I ran across my Union Carbide adapter recently in one of my tool boxes. I had to buy it when I leased my first set of bottles back in the early '70s.