So I just got a new, to me, steel tank yay! The tank markings are pretty hard to read however. I was wondering if anyone had a good way to painting/highlighting/etc the tank markings to make it easier to read in the future.
Filling in scuba tank markings
- Thread starter azstinger11
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Why? I mean, you don’t care, the fill station cares and the hydro facility cares. And the hydro facility will put a new date on it every 5 years anyway.
OP
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Rub yellow crayon/grease pencil on the markings of it bothers you. I wouldn’t spend the time. I owned a liveaboard patterned after the California liveaboards. I’ve seen a lot of tanks. I’ve never rejected one for faint markings.
lowlysubaruguy
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Bright contrasting paint marker pen fill in the stamped areas and gently wipe off the excess. Might work for a while. Clear tape of the VIP sticker might hold up longer as well. But more important to me would be your name and contact numbers on the tank might get your gear back to you if there ever lost long story but a buddy of mines masking tape name and number put on by the last place to be air filled got him back his tank regulators BC and all the gear attached to it.
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That's perfect thanks!
Could always use a sharpie
Johnoly
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I've Done It …....
The problem with re-stamped older scuba tanks is that the hydro guy usually doesn't give a sharp edge, uniform depth on the re-stamp. He takes out his handheld metal numbers stamps and gives it a mighty blow with a 5 pound engineering hammer. If he misses the 1st time, he tries to line it up the best he can and WHAM it again even harder making the depths a mess.
So this is what I did when I repainted my steels. Clean the area with acetone and let it fully dry. I bought a pint can of white Rust Oleum paint from the big box store. Took a portion and 50/50 diluted it with plain water mixing well.
I would flood the engraving with the thin mix layer with a brush, then use a curved edge cut from a soda case chipboard flap and squeege off the excess after waiting 1 minute to setup. The curved edge cut doesn't need to be exact, just a smooth line since it bends to conform to the tank neck. Next I wrapped a dry paper towel wrapped around a foam flexible sanding block. The foam block allows it to curve to the tank neck, but still stiff enough that it didn't go down into the stamped depths. The squeege and the towel gets off 85% of the excess paint on the surface. Now to get the remaining haze off without destroying the lettering depths. I let it setup and dry for another 4 hours before working on the haze.
Water would not remove the paint haze/film easily, so I used Turtle Wax -label and sticker remover (autoparts store). This stuff worked great to easily remove the excess paint but also didn't damage the high gloss gray paint. Only problem with it is that if it gets into the engraving, it has to be completely soap and water washed out for the paint to stick again. So used your foam block again and LIGHTLY mist the Turtle Wax fluid on to the flat paper towel. You are trying to take off layers of haze, not soak the stamp depths and you'll do this 3-4 times. Let everything dry for a day then gently use soap and water to clean the area. Lastly spray a clear coat over your work to protect it. Some of the engraving was so shallow or filled in, I couldn't squeege the paint because it would all be removed. But on the deeper cuts, it came out sharp and crisp.
WHY did I fill in the lettering??? Because sometimes when I brought my tanks to an unfamilar fill station they would say they couldn't read them, or they wanted the paint ground off, or it wasn't a factory paint, and on and on and on. I've fill thousands of tanks and I'm the same way and don't want to waste time figuring out if the tank is legit and safe to fill. So I did the lettering to make it easy for the filler to see the hydro and fill it. I've said it on SB many times,,bring your filler guys donuts/cookies, mark your mixes clearly and if you make his job easy you'll get great fills and service. If he has to waste time on your tank, he's not gonna be happy and you won't be diving.
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