Welding Tips and Tricks

I'm in Ca. and looking to get a tank with 75/25 for my mig. Just wondering who you guys find to have the best prices for tank and gas. From what I'm told the closest welding supply is a bit on the high side, a 25 min. drive away is an Airgas, Praxair, Barnes and maybe a couple others.

Thanks.

I've used Airgas for years in both CA and TX. Always fine service and good prices.

LDB

I would beg to differ about Airgas. The one I USED to use was notorious for short filling bottles and one of their salesmen tried to pull a fast one on me over a welder repair. I accidently met the manager of a LWS that is a small independant shop and their prices on fills are 1/3 cheaper and they bend over backwards to accomodate my needs. Nothing used to piss me off worse than walking into AG and waiting for one of the salesmen to get around to helping me. AG is retarded about not filling a competitors bottle. My new LWS will fill any bottle and they drop what they are doing when they see you walk in to help you out.Almost everyone who uses AG that I know has alot of complaints about them. They bought out all their competitors in this area and now they have the notion that they have everyone by the short and curlies. I drive 30 miles to my new LWS and just their "how can I help you?" attitude, not to mention the money I save is well worth the the extra 10 miles I have to drive. Find an independant shop and steer clear of Airgas. JMHO

Jeff, Show them your rouges gallery pic, and you'll get platinum service for life....

weldin mike 27 wrote:Jeff, Show them your rouges gallery pic, and you'll get platinum service for life....

In all seriousness, the smaller weld supply shops really do want and respect your business. Airgas supplies such large quantities of gas to huge consumers that the little guy who walks in off the street to swap out a bottle is chump change to them and , at least my local Airgas, acts like you are more of a PITA than you are worth. They definitly scrambled for me when I bought a Miller 252 and a plasma cutter at the same time but after they have your money, they don't see you as worth their time anymore. The last time I visited Airgas and stood at the counter waiting while 3 salesman joked and played grab ass and finally got around to acknowledging me I asked for thr manager and I let him have it. I am sure that all their stores are not like that but my new supplier can't do enough for you. I guess Airgas thinks they are too big to fail.

Unfortunately there's only 1 lws here, its an independent shop but I'm told that their prices are high. I called Praxair and didn't like the attitude of the guy who I talked to, impatient like I was bothering him and after getting off the phone I'm still unsure of the cost. Both the lws and Praxair had a different way of describing the tank size being quoted, one said waist high the other says medium size so I don't know if they are the same size, the prices were about $20 apart, I think ha ha.

yamahablue wrote:Unfortunately there's only 1 lws here, its an independent shop but I'm told that their prices are high. I called Praxair and didn't like the attitude of the guy who I talked to, impatient like I was bothering him and after getting off the phone I'm still unsure of the cost. Both the lws and Praxair had a different way of describing the tank size being quoted, one said waist high the other says medium size so I don't know if they are the same size, the prices were about $20 apart, I think ha ha.

If it was me I would spend my money at the indy shop. Screw the big suppliers. I won't do business with anyone with an attitude. I am in business for myself and sometimes I have to bite my tongue til blood spurts out of my nose because some people are just impossible to deal with and how long would I bein business if I treated people like jerks? The big suppliers do exactly that because they can. This is just my opinion and your mileage may vary but my indy weld supply shop has earned my business forever.

yamahablue wrote:Unfortunately there's only 1 lws here, its an independent shop but I'm told that their prices are high. I called Praxair and didn't like the attitude of the guy who I talked to, impatient like I was bothering him and after getting off the phone I'm still unsure of the cost. Both the lws and Praxair had a different way of describing the tank size being quoted, one said waist high the other says medium size so I don't know if they are the same size, the prices were about $20 apart, I think ha ha.

If I remember Monday, I'll bring home a booklet that covers that subject (Thanks, Braehill). It defines several different suppliers' descriptions of the same damn size bottle.

Steve

I have to refrain from contributing to some parts of this discussion, but I will say that I wish there was a more standard language when it came to cylinder identification like there is when referring to their valves, whether it be number, letter, capacity, anything standardized.

Len

I am willing to drive a long way to another dealer rather than walk into my local Airgas dealer.

Plain ol bill I must agree with you. I despise air gas with a passion. I've been to several location and everyone is the same. Never have what you need or "That ain't what you want, this is what you need". I can't stand it when someone knows better than me what I need or want.

I guess it must vary by location, since the Airgas location that I use in my area has actually been fairly good on prices and being helpful, though their selection of TIG consumables is pitiful.

Another LWS which is an absolute pain to catch open due to my work schedule is far better on the consumables and getting odd bits of advice or parts, so I end up ordering through them and picking up on the weekend when I want something local. They're cheaper too, if I can afford to wait until I can catch them open.

Bottle sizes.
I'll ignore AP sizes, as they no longer do commercial bottling, if I recall correctly.

A 9X55 (inches): AirGas and BOC call a "300", for Aire Liquide it's a "49", Praxair calls a "T", Matheson calls a 1L...

Get the idea?

A 9X51: Airgas and BOC call a "200". Or a "44". or a "K". Or a "1A".

Get the picture?

Judge your bottle by it's outside dimensions, not it's "designation".

Only the valves are standardized.

Steve S

I went and shopped around for a cylinder and gas, ended up purchasing at Praxair. Airgas was by far the most expensive, not by a little. I went with a medium small size(Praxair size Q), looks to be the same as what airgas called an 80.

I'm a little concerned about the mix, it isn't clearly labeled 75/25, it says ar star14.

yamahablue wrote:I went and shopped around for a cylinder and gas, ended up purchasing at Praxair. Airgas was by far the most expensive, not by a little. I went with a medium small size(Praxair size Q), looks to be the same as what airgas called an 80.

I'm a little concerned about the mix, it isn't clearly labeled 75/25, it says ar star14.

Yep, Praxair "Q" equals AirGas "80", approx. 7" X 33". Should hold about 83 ft^3 at standard fill, or 92 ft^3 at 10% overfill. So at a flow of 10 cfh/hr, that's between 8 an nine hours of continuous bead time.

Steve S

This should be a good size for my intended use, sticker on the tank says 95cf. Is10cf/hr what I should set the output to? I thaught 20cf/hr was the norm.

I'm wondering if the airgas store was trying to rip me off, they quoted me $210 for just the 80 cyl., no gas (+extra $82.20 for gas) I go to their website and it comes up as under $100 for the cylinder. That gets me thinking did I over pay at Praxair too lol, $160+ tax for cylinder and contents.

yamahablue wrote:This should be a good size for my intended use, sticker on the tank says 95cf. Is10cf/hr what I should set the output to? I thaught 20cf/hr was the norm.

I'm wondering if the airgas store was trying to rip me off, they quoted me $210 for just the 80 cyl., no gas (+extra $82.20 for gas) I go to their website and it comes up as under $100 for the cylinder. That gets me thinking did I over pay at Praxair too lol, $160+ tax for cylinder and contents.

Sorry... I was using 10 CFH as easy math in the example.

For steel, 10 CFH is often fine. For Stainless, 15 CFH may be more appropriate. For aluminum, I've used as much as 35 CFH.

The gas setting is affected by your setup... A large cup on a gas lens will take less gas than a smaller cup on a standard collet. Welding in dead-still air requires less gas, especially with a good diffuser.

Steve S

Locally I paid $196 for an empty 80cf cylinder and about $35 for 75/25 mix and somewhere close for Argon. I normally rent a 330cf Argon cylinder but wanted an 80cf for portability.

A little bit about filling cylinders, anything smaller than a 125cf cylinder is only filled to 2085# @ 70*F and anything over that can be filled up to 2700# if it qualifies for a 10% overfill. Expect that your cylinder is usually going to be filled to less than 2400# because it's being filled with 49 other cylinders and unless they all qualify for overfill they have to stop at 2400#. Cylinders are filled on a manifold and limited to the weak link. There is also a temperature correction to 70*F and a cylinder heats up while being filled, so when it returns to ambient temps it will have a lower pressure than when filled. The cylinder fill guys are not real good at making sure the cylinders meet an exact number either when they're filling hundreds at a time, close enough is the norm.

If you own your own cylinder and it qualifies for the 10% overfill you still probably will only get less than 2400# because it will be filled with other non-qualifying cylinders or cascaded from a bank of cylinders depending on the size of the cylinder fill facility.

Len

All of places around here, as far as I can tell, do an exchange, take my empty and give a full for the price of the contents (roughly $40) plus a couple bucks. Im sure if I wanted I could request the same tank back, maybe not though.The one I purchased is not new so I guess it doesn't matter if I just swap for another used one.

gtmcgeejr wrote: Never have what you need or "That ain't what you want, this is what you need". I can't stand it when someone knows better than me what I need or want.

Yep, counter guys just wants to sell you something even if it isn't right. They are there for sales numbers. Sell you something and get you out of store doesn't matter if it works are not. Just get rid of junk on shelves instead of ordering what you really want or need. Really hate the bullcrapping sales guys that never welded except on a virtual machine when they where being trained for there sales positions And they wanna tell me all about TIG welding.

When I got my duel flowmeter thought I would give local guy a shot at sale. Gave them part number of what I wanted. He says "wow those are really expensive I got cheaper way" tried to sell me crap they had on shelves to put on existing meter. Yes it can be done that way but price he wanted for the parts was more than what I could get actual flowmeter for from another local company. Told him no I wanted the part number I gave him. He couldn't get even close to price of other guy. Think he just wanted to sell what he had laying around cause he knows he will prolly never sell it around here he lost out on that sale plus a mess of other stuff. That was his chance at a sale and future sales that he will never get.