How to tell a False Hydro

[Ed66]

I was wondering if their is any way to get a DOT list of all the hydro stamps. I work at a dive shop and had a few tanks come in that appear to have been fudged hydro stamps. they just had the month and year stamped into them. I told the owner that they were missing the inspector stamp in-between the month and year. He took them back and came a week later and the stamp looked good but the in-between didn't stand to match the local hydro shop. Any advice or link to hydro info would be great. Thanks Ed

 

[Charlie99]

The simplest thing would be to engage the tank owner about the relative merits and costs of the various hydro facilities and inquire as to which one he used.

You're going to eventually end up asking the question, so why not save yourself a lot of extra work and just go ahead and politely ask. He may have had it done through another dive shop, so another good opening line of questioning is "how much do the other guys charge?"

I don't envy you trying to go through some huge list of hydro facilities trying to match up their stamps with those on his tank.

 

[oxyhacker]

There is a listing of all hydrotesters listed by RIN numbers at http://hazmat.dot.gov/sp_app/approvals/hydro/hydro_retesters.htm
Though to really be sure you'd have to call the shop up and have them look up the hydro to confirm they really did it. Good shops will usually have their own custom RIN stamp for stamping their # rather that using separate dies, but fakers usually use individual dies. So RIN number stamped with a proper stamp usually means a legitimate hydro, however, since using separate stamps is still legal, not using one doesn't automatically mean the hydo is fake. Though a really sloppy stamping, or one in the wrong place (like on the sidewall) can be a giveaway.

Personally, fake hydros are pretty low on the list of things I worry about, as long as the tank passes a visual.

 

[wedivebc]

I was wondering if their is any way to get a DOT list of all the hydro stamps. I work at a dive shop and had a few tanks come in that appear to have been fudged hydro stamps. they just had the month and year stamped into them. I told the owner that they were missing the inspector stamp in-between the month and year. He took them back and came a week later and the stamp looked good but the in-between didn't stand to match the local hydro shop. Any advice or link to hydro info would be great. Thanks Ed

As Vance mentioned busy hydro shop will have their number made into a single stamp and often in a smaller font so the number may not appear to match.

 

[Ed66]

Thanks once again, it was not hard at all to track were he might have had it done his one stamp matched a local shop, but the shop was listed as doing LP tanks. So my boss is goona call them mon. and ask as we still have the tank. We were all pretty p****d when this guy 1st came in all his vip sticker's (4 tanks) had both the month and year scraped off he claimed it was from weight belt but the funnning thing is his stickers were on different places on the tank's and the hydro's were stamped 06-08 that's it. We gave him the out by saying his hydro place forgot the inner stamp. So he came back in and his tank look's legit now but we are going to contac the shop he had it done at to verify it as the shop is only listed to do LP and his was a HP.
I think it's the last time at our shop for this guy, we have failed a few of the older HP PST tank's for neck crack's this guy has no care for me or the other shop tech's who have to fill his tanks, our price's are very fair for a hydro he has his own business and has the cash. But I guess his life or our's is not worth the hydro charge.

 

[DiveSite]

......... we have failed a few of the older HP PST tank's for neck crack's

I didn't realize steel tanks had a problem with neck cracks.

 

[Thalassamania]

Most of the hydro stations that I have used over the years do not have custom dies and use a combo of "normal" dies that nevers looks that good.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I think it's the last time at our shop for this guy, we have failed a few of the older HP PST tank's for neck crack's this guy has no care for me or the other shop tech's who have to fill his tanks, our price's are very fair for a hydro he has his own business and has the cash. But I guess his life or our's is not worth the hydro charge.

Hmmm...if you failed one of my HP steel tanks due to neck cracks I'd hope you limited the failure to refusing to put one of your VIP stickers on it. If you drilled it or X'd out the stamp, we'd have some serious words, I'd get a second opinion from a DOT certifired requalification facility and you may find yourself buying me a new tank after I took you to small claims court. If you failed and condemned a tank for a shop VIP that was just returned from requalification (hydro test) I'd be EXTREMELY upset as I would have already gotten the "second" opinion as it had already passed the legally required hydro and VIP done by people who do it for a living.

I have no objection to hydro test facilites condemning tanks for cracks, failed hydro tests, etc as they are required to render the tank unusable by law. However I am not inclined to allow a local dive shop the same lattitude to do so based on their opinion that a tank failed what is only an industry required annual VIP. In that case, unless I know and trust you, I'm probably going to want a second opinion and/or see the evidence myself.

The difference between a "crack" and a "fold" in any tank is important as one will disqualify the tank and the other is an entirely normal artifact of the manufacturing process. Not everyone knows the difference. In regard to a steel tank, a crack is exceptionally rare and a crack in a steel tank, especially an HP tank that is by definition very young in the time scale of steel tanks, would statistically raise suspicion.
______

In terms of stamps, in 25 years of diving, after numerous hydro tests, and after owning numerous older tanks with several hydro test stamps, I have never seen anything other than a custom stamp for the RIN number. Its possible they have just been incredibly good at spacing and aligning the letter and numbers, but I doubt it. A missing stamp or a poorly aligned RIN number or test date would be suspect for a forged stamp.

I agree with Oxyhacker that a forged bydro test would not be high on my list of concerns, especially with steel tanks that almost never fail a hydro test making it almost a legal formality on tanks that if they are ever condemned tend to be condemed due to rust and pitting.

However if you find one that is suspicious just pick up the phone and call the facility. They are required by law to keep the test records and, especially if the test is recent, they should be able to access the records and verify the test was completed. If it has been a few years, the records may be filed away somewhere, but they should still be filed by month and year of the test and should not be that hard to locate. At worst someone has to spend a few minutes scanning the test sheets that month for the customer's name and then verify the serial number of the tank and the test results.

 

[oxyhacker]

Me neither. As ace PSI instructor Dale Fox puts it, "There's no history of neck cracks in steel tanks, but we check anyway".

Also, should they occur, they don't cause catastrophic failure the way the do on 6531 alloy tanks but rather just cause leaks as on the later alu tanks.

I would be very suspicious of a shop that regularly found neck cracks on steel tanks.
Stories like this are why I wouldn't take any tank of mine for a visual to a shop that insists on rendering any tank that fails unusable!

I didn't realize steel tanks had a problem with neck cracks.

 

[Ed66]

Well 1st off we don't drill or X out stamp's so we wouldn't have serious words.The reason we are concerned about this is we had 2 HP steel's that we sent out to our DOT certifired requalification facility and THEY failed the tanks for neck cracks so it's not just our shop . When we fail a tank we just put a sticker on it and what the cust. does with it is his business. We had an incident a few years ago a cust. came in to get a fill the tank was in current hydro and VIP but not by our shop halfway into the fill the guy filling it heard air coming from someplace. After checking he found it was coming from the tank sidewall needles to say it was pretty scary. We don't regularly find neck cracks on steel tanks but has happened, it seems that this is getting blown out, I will check our shop records but I think it was 3 tanks that failed and 2 were from the DOT center went sent them out to.
Thanks