Used tank info

[Luis H]

Yup, and that's the issue there. No stamps no tests. They never were supposed to by hydro'd in the first place. In my PSI inspection course they had one of them as an example of mistakes being made. It had numerous hydro stamps and VIS stickers on it, none of which should have been done. Point of fact the stickers should have been removed as well to see under them, it was covered in them to the extent it looked like a walking billboard. And it wasn't from the same dive shop, it was numerous dive shops.

A hydro facility must abide by the govt. regulations, a VIS inspection for the scuba industry isn't law and so you could argue that you could do a VIS on them, but the hydro could not be done. I myself would not do a VIS on one of these cylinders either, I figure if the hydro facility can't test them then I won't VIP them. Many insurance companies for dive shops require some sort of training and safety program in place for fills to get decent coverage rates (assuming the LDS cares about insuring) and then you get insurance restrictions which require training and compliance with standards. I'm on file at a LDS because I've taken the training and it helps them get lower insurance rates. There really isn't a law that's standared for scuba gear, but if it was used commercially then there is a law there. Go figure.

A hydro facility can actually test anything, they just can’t stamp as they would a DOT cylinder. They can even stamp the date of testing on a non DOT cylinder, but most of the time they use a dash instead of the 4 character hydro station identification code now required by DOT.

This practice is particularly common for hydro stations near ports where foreign vessels may bring foreign cylinders to be tested. As long as they are not for use in the US it is not a problem.

Some cylinders that are kind of in a grey area are the life raft pressure cylinders. Those are often hydro and filled in the US, but spend most of the time in international waters. Many of the life raft cylinders are DOT, but I have seen some that are not.


The Navy aluminum 90 cu ft cylinders you are referring about should not be tested, but they are probably fine…if the aluminum formed in place plug at the bottom is not leaking.

 

[pescador775]

Back in the 70's, our entire wreck diving team used aluminum, Navy tanks. We "liberated" a dozen sets of doubles that were to be scrapped because of the beryllium valves. Our team leader owned a dive shop with hydrostatic tester and these tanks all tested good, every time. Once, we came upon a new, single 90 and the darn thing leaked through the bottom plug as Luis implied. One thing about the valves, they were difficult to remove first time. The alloy tended to grab the aluminum due to small amount of corrosion.